Grow Your Own Playground gets schools gardening!
Established in 2012, there are now seventeen Grow Your Own Playground schools in London who have linked gardening into their curriculum.
Understanding the importance of connecting their pupils with plants and the natural world is a priority for these schools. The Grow Your Own Playground team are privileged to be able to work with over 7000 pupils throughout the year, aged from 3-11 years old, across the London Boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Newham and Peckham.
‘Bringing nature into the classroom can kindle a fascination and passion for the diversity of life on earth and can motivate a sense of responsibility to safeguard it.’ David Attenborough
Building a Garden within your school
Schools gardens range from a small number of planters around a playground to designated garden or woodland area within school grounds. We can work with your school to build what is practical and sustainable for you or work with existing gardens which may be proving difficult to manage.
We will then work with a school all year round and take lessons for all year groups to get pupils observing the changes throughout the year and connecting with nature. The school garden becomes an outdoor classroom that will inspire not just pupils but also the teachers, parents and the local community.We grow a huge range of plants that inspire the pupils to get them excited and surprised about gardening. We run lessons across all curriculum subjects using the garden as a hands on teaching resource.
‘When Nature is our classroom, all things converge, interconnect, and make sense.’ Satish Kumar
Working with school gardens led me to write my first gardening book- Grow Your Own Ingredients-Pasta Sauce. I have also written ‘Homegrown Tea- how to grow and blend your own homegrown teas and tisanes’, ‘Grow Your Own Ingredients- Ice Cream’ and ‘Grow Your Own Ingredients- Jam & Jelly’.
Please visit my website www.cassieliversidge.com or follow me on twitter and Instagram
If your school is interested in Grow Your Own Playgrounds, please contact me via my contacts page. Happy Gardening! Cassie