There are so many advantages to having a gardening club in schools. Supporting children and young people to learn where their food comes from and how to grow helps them to form good eating habits, gives them skills for life, helps them to understand and appreciate nature. Spending time outdoors also improves wellbeing.
There are many resources available to support gardening groups. You may have worries about health and safety or will you find enough to do each week?
Local school gardeners have set up a whatsapp group for other local school gardeners to join. They share tips, advice, resources, and experiences.
If you are interested in joining the group, please email – hello@schools-ecolink.co.uk
The RHS website contains information covering everything you should need to know to run a successful school garden including tips and ideas about how to grow and guidance for writing your risk assessments.
The website also offers eLearning for teachers, and steps to work towards achieving a 5-level RHS School Gardening award.
The Food for Life campaign provides growing advice for schools with links to the curriculum and cooking.
Charles Dowding is a gardener famous for championing a ‘No dig’ method of gardening. His website and regular videos and newsletters contain lots of tips. Visit his website here for advice for growing food within a school timetable.
Composting in schools has many benefits from teaching children and young people about natural cycles to saving waste and reusing.
You may have a school garden where you compost plants grown or you may want to compost food waste from cookery activities, fruit snacks, or the school kitchen. There is plenty of guidance for each.
For a simple guide to composting, the RHS has produced a guide to composting in schools.
To learn more about garden composting basics, here’s another guide from the RHS.
Recycle Devon has produced a wonderful in-depth guide to composting in schools which includes all the information you need for composting in schools – including different methods of composting, problem solving, legislation, risk assessments, managing staff time, food audits, and more!
The guide mentions the Ridan composter which is a more heavy duty composter which can compost cooked food waste safely. Find out more from their website.