EAST DULWICH

Gardens for Schools Final Project Report

November 2010

Project supported by funding from Awards for All England

East Dulwich SNUB is happy to report that our Garden for Schools project has been a very successful project. We helped the four local primary schools and local pupil referral unit primary school.

First we would like to thank Awards for All England for their award, without which this project could not have been done. Secondly we would like to thank all of the staff and friends at each school for their interest and support. They are currently managing the upkeep of the gardens/raised beds at their schools. Local business, McGovern Carpentry has built eleven raised beds for the local schools! The construction is beautiful. They also re-constructed the raised beds at Goose Green for small person accessibility. Gardening classes and student one-to-one instruction was supported by Marilyn Donahue-Schiller from SNUB. Each school was invited to have one person from their school attend local gardener, Jane Booth, monthly veg garden. Local bookshop owner John Chener donated a gardening “how to” book to each school and SNUB purchased other book to help support each school. SNUB sponsored a Spring seedling swap and seed propagation workshop at the local community festival in May 2010, over twenty people from the community brought seedlings and over 100 plants were exchanged. This will now become a regular event for the May festival. Over 250 hours of gardening help was made available through SNUB for all of the schools in either direct help with their gardens, assemblies and or workshops with the children and staff and parents.

Schools update

Summerhouse PRU Primary School: When we approached the school they had already planned a very large garden space at the school entrance but needed our support to design and plant it up. With the help of SNUB we held assemblies with students and staff to learn about growing plants and then designing what plants would go into the space. The school then spent most of November through February planting the beds. A small cold frame was constructed and students also grew plants indoors during winter to plant outside in Spring. The school has also been given a water butt and a compost bin and three new very large raised beds for veg growing. A Spring fete was held for parents and carers and all students were invited to take home a grow bag and veg seedling to practice growing veg at home. The local produce grown at the school was cooked by the students and staff, trying out new recipes.

Goose Green Primary School: Raised beds were re-constructed by McGovern Carpentry. The veg beds needed to be lowered for small persons accessibility SNUB then removed the top two feet of sand and added compost and top soil so veg could be grown, students constructed a small coldframe for their seedlings and workshops were held to teach how to grow plants. The students cooked some of the veg with their teachers.

Goodrich School Primary School: McGovern Carpentry built four raised beds for the school. Staff then filled them and veg was grown. The school was also given a small coldframe to store their seedlings, tools, gloves and pots for growing veg. Goodrich has now asked to be involved in a local community centre growing project that SNUB has recently been awarded funding for. This new award would not have been possible without the AFE grant.

These two schools started their projects this term so are not as far along as the other three schools.

St. Anthony’s Primary School: SNUB purchased four raised beds, 2 water butts, and two compost bins for the school. A parent from the school is developing their growing spaces at the school. SNUB will speak at the local parents meeting to catalyze interest.

Heber Primary School: SNUB spoke to the parents group at Heber and they organized a Saturday clean-up of the garden area. Over 15 parents were present and the raised bed area was cleaned up to prepare for the raised beds. Four large beds and a compost bin and two water butts were purchased for the school.

Local residents are encouraged to contact their local schools to get involved!