Food for Thought
This year we will be forming a link with a school in rural Uganda. This is organised by Devon Development Education and which is based in the Global Centre in Exeter.
This project has two aims. Firstly, that our children learn about where their food comes from, growing food in a sustainable way and having opportunities to grow and eat their own produce. Secondly, that they also learn about life in Uganda, sustainable growing and that our children have opportunities to compare their growing with that in Uganda. The children will communicate with our link school in a number of ways during the term and we are hoping to host a visit from the head teacher of our link school sometime this year.
By being part of the project we get to learn about life in a country that is very culturally different to our own and the Ugandan school receives funding for a garden teacher to work with their children. These teachers teach the children how to grow food in a sustainable way which they can apply to their home setting.
Our children will have lots of opportunities to grow their own produce this year. The Year 3/4 classes will be gardening on a 3 weekly rotation growing fruit and vegetables in the environmental area. They will be learning about how to look after plants in a sustainable way considering water consumption, soil conservation and seasonal variation. This will cover their green plant science objectives as well as some D and T objectives as they will also be cooking some of the things they have grown.
Year 2 will also be gardening alongside their forest schools.
Summer Term.
We took part in the Food for Thought growing competition and
Elijah Kyamuwendo came to our school on 4th July to judge our school garden, French beans, sunflowers and potatoes. He had lots of ideas about how we can improve our garden and increase our growing space which we will use next year.
Between the classes we managed to grow 8kg 325g of potatoes which was much better than last year!
The judging took place on Monday 11th July and we were very successful and won the following awards:
• First prize for the tallest and best looking sunflower
• Special commendation for the best crop of new potatoes
• Second prize for our French beans
• Third prize for overall winners
As part of the competition we also won £20 and our Ugandan link school will receive some matoke green cooking bananas to plant.
We were very pleased with these results and the children’s hard work really paid off.
St Mary's C of E Primary School craft and produce fair
Also to celebrate our learning about growing our own food we hosted our own craft and produce fair. The afternoon was a great success and the children took part with great enthusiasm and had created some very beautiful craft work. Many children had grown their own produce at home and they all received a special award.
In addition to the fun had during the afternoon by entering the competitions and donating £1 we managed to raise over £130 for Food for Thought and we will be investing this money into the project next term.
Spring term
Things really started to get busy during the spring term and all the children have worked hard to get the garden up and running for the summer term.
At the end of the winter term all three classes had planted a green manure of field beans to grow in the soil and increase the nutrient levels.
The first job at the start of the spring term was to break up and dig in all of the field bean plants back into the soil. Then they removed all of the weeds and put them on to the compost heap.
The children had been learning about the right conditions for seeds to germinate and worked out that the soil temperature in February was too cold. To help warm the soil up and keep the weeds down the children covered the beds with tarpaulins and garden membrane.
The children started planting a variety of seeds indoors in newspaper pots. They planted Purple Queen French beans, Speedy French beans, Oasis peas, Twinkle peas and Long pod broad beans. Skylarks also planted some flower seeds that they will be selling during the summer term to raise money for the Food For Thought project. These were left to germinate and grow on indoors and some of them were planted out before the Easter holidays. The children learnt how to protect these little plants from pests and cold weather by planting them underneath large plastic drinks bottles which have acted like mini greenhouses.
All the equipment and plants arrived that were bought with the Morrisons gardening vouchers and the children planted gooseberry bushes, raspberry bushes, blackcurrant bushes and a blueberry bush. We also received four apple trees that Mr Cullingham kindly planted in the environmental area.
The P.F.S.M also kindly donated some money to our gardening project and we used some of it to plant a whole bed of strawberries. The children really enjoyed planting and watering these and I think this is definitely our most looked forward to crop!
The children have also planted radish, turnip and carrot seeds and have been learning how to lay these out in rows and to label what you have planted where. They have also planted some additional rhubarb to go with the large plant we have already.
All the classes have been involved with some growing this term and have planted some seed potatoes and some French beans that they will be entering in the St Mary’s craft and produce show in the summer term.
Week 1
This week the Skylarks started to tackle the weeds that have grown over the summer in the vegetable beds. The children split into small groups and learnt how to use trowels and hand forks safely. They removed the old dead plants and weeds and put them in the compost heap.
The children got to see what happens to a vegetable plot if it is not looked after and weeds kept on top of. This will be one of the tasks they will carry out this year to look after the vegetable and fruit plants that we will be planting.
Sandpipers – week 2
This week the Sandpipers continued to weed and sort the beds. They learnt how to use hand tools safely and worked in teams to dig over the soil in the beds. They found lots of worms which they learnt were important to keep as they help to maintain the soil. All of the weeds they dug up were added to the compost heap.
