Barnet In Bloom

In September 2007 the School Council (Eco) agreed to start the school on their ’helping the environment’ journey. The year has involved the whole school community in reducing, reusing and recycling; outside visitors have talked to the children about the 3R’s and many different activities have been completed by the children. The new garden and clearing up the pond area are part of this work.

A garden club was started to improve the school grounds and for the children to grow vegetables. The children carried out an audit of the school grounds to find areas to develop and to draw up an action plan. They wrote to local business and the parents/carers asking for donations of items to help with the gardening club, suggesting items that might be thrown out because they are damaged. The children discussed what they could use for planters, with an emphasis on reusing and came up with tyres and pallets. Kwik Fit gave us the tyres and the Summers Lane Recycling Depot collected the pallets. They also gave us tools and canes. Tesco gave us their plastic food containers for planting shrubs. A volunteer (Mr Richards) helped to make the planters from the pallets and to paint them. Wickes collected plastic from deliveries so we could line the boxes. The club planted bulbs in the tyres, dug over and cleared overgrown shrubs in the pond area and then planted bulbs, dug new beds, grew seeds in egg boxes in the classroom and planted them in the boxes, weeded, planted a wild flower garden, basically they wanted to grow as much as possible and as big a variety as possible so they had things you ate, smelt, admired and touched! They also provided bug hotels/houses in the school grounds!

We were overwhelmed by the number of children who wanted to come and join in, the response was fantastic. We had to stagger the times each key stage came to make it manageable. The enthusiasm and commitment, despite the weather, was really rewarding. The children were thrilled at the success of their growing power, took great pride in the input they have had to the appearance of the school grounds and are already planning for next year and what they hope to grow. They have given their produce to the parents/carers, asking for a donation, to help sustain their Gardening Club! We were very fortunate to have generous sponsorship from Wickes, Wyevales Daws Lane, Protocol, Finchley Nurseries, Homebase, Summers Lane Recycling Centre, Reviva Composting and Tesco for their plastic containers.

The Gardening Club were rewarded for all their hard work by winning second prize in the Best School Garden category in Barnet in Bloom. Four children with a member of staff went to Barnet House to collect the prize from the Mayor of Barnet. An assembly was held at school and the Mayor of Barnet was invited to present the certificate to all the children in the Gardening Club.