The funding has had a huge impact on our school. We have built a herb spiral with help from some parents, we have planted beans, potatoes, courgettes, carrots and strawberries in the raised beds, we have established a proper composting section in the garden and we are in the process of installing a rain water barrel to save water from the roof to use to water the garden. The children are loving the garden, each class now visits at least once a week for a gardening lesson and it is also used on a regular basis by the SET team and pupils.

Researching ideas to harvest rainwater from the roof of our school this evening.
We hope that this will be up and running in the coming months.

We have had our first and second garden team meeting so far. Myself, Alison and Margaret are taking the lead on the project and we have wonderful support from our SEN team too. We have weeded some of the beds and we can't wait to get planting next week. We are really excited to start growing potatoes, beans, peas and strawberries.

We are really excited to get started on our school garden. Our first step was to dig out the the existing raised beds, there are a few in the school already but they are really overgrown and neglected. We actually managed to get a lot done already, really happy with how they're looking. We've attached photos of the beds before and after our first session in the garden.
First on our list for spending the seed funding is to get some vegetables to plant. Some of the classes are already growing beans and peas, they'll be ready to go out soon when the weather warms up a little.
Next we would like to invest in some rain barrels to conserve water off the school roof and use it to water the raised beds. At present we are walking quite a long way from the tap with watering cans which isn't very sustainable.
Our school will benefit from this in many ways. Already the children are so excited to be outdoors, learning about the soil and weeding. They will learn so much from watching the vegetables grow. We hope it will be particularly helpful for SEN children, working in the garden is a wonderful sensory activity for children who struggle in the classroom. Even the simple act of handling soil with their hands is very therapeutic for a child who is having a difficult day. At present they are learning a lot about the use of water, it's heavy work carrying the watering cans and they are beginning to understand more about water wastage. We hope it will be very educational for them to learn about how to conserve water that normally goes to waste when we get the rain barrels.