GARDENING AT REDRIFF PRIMARY SCHOOL
At the beginning of the school year, back in September 2020, I began my role as the gardener at Redriff Primary School, having constructed the two food growing planters with my colleague Glen during the summer.
Although the idea of taking the lead on a project with Global Generation was a slightly daunting one, I was confident I would make a success of it with everything I had learned with the charity over the previous year of my employment. The opportunity has helped me to continue to improve my food growing and teaching skills as well as develop my proficiency in the planning and delivery of sessions.
From the moment I entered the building I knew it was a great school. They had a BLM exhibition in the main reception area with current and historical content of inspirational stories and quotes, drawings, pictures and reading resources.
At Redriff there is a real sense of togetherness and community within the school and their holistic approach to learning underpins everything they do. There always seems to be something new going on. I was delighted to be given the opportunity to take on this role and have the chance to work in such an environment.
Over the previous five months in the school I have been running sessions with nursery, year three and, years five and six in their after school club. Together we have learned about soil, composting, seed sowing, food growing, bulb planting and wildflower meadows.
We created a wildflower meadow in dedication to the recently departed headteacher, Mr Kelly, after over 20 years. We’re all looking forward to seeing the results over the coming months and hope it can provide a fantastic habitat and food source for our pollinators. Our next project is to construct a bug hotel near the wildlife area to create a large habitat for all those ‘creepy crawlies’.
I can’t wait for the coming months where we’ll be growing and harvesting food and making improvements to the nature area. It will give us a great opportunity to really put into practice everything we’ve learned.
I’m so grateful to Redriff that, despite everything that’s going on, they’ve allowed the weekly sessions to continue, seeing the importance in the work we do at Global Generation. The children have been absolutely fantastic and it is great to be able to continue to offer them the chance to participate in outdoor learning.
It has been an inspiring experience for myself and I’m looking forward to continuing my role and working with more children in the school over the coming months.
By Martin Shaw
Notes from the Garden
I wake to a bright crisp winter’s day. Finally … after weeks of storms ravaging the country.
As the year ends we are reminded of the magic and beauty that our gardens bring, as places to come together and celebrate, even in difficult times. This year it has been challenging not to be taken over by fear and despair, with extreme weather events being mirrored in different ways across the world, from floods to droughts; with the most recent political events; with wars destroying land and displacing entire populations; and with the constant increase in the cost of living creating ever more inequalities between those that have and those that do not.