In the autumn term each year our school enters children's paintings, poetry, handwriting and craft items into the local Chrysanthemum Show held in our village hall.
Last year one local gardener, Ken Ebdon, caught my attention as he looked sorrowfully at the dwindling entries in the fruit and vegetable categories. 'Why is it that each year, the entries get less and less,' he said. 'What we need to do is get the youngsters more interested in growing things.'
Apologetically, I responded that we were doing our best, having recently ordered some raised beds thanks to supermarket Morrison's voucher scheme. But, as keen amateurs, we didn't have much confidence in our ability as gardeners. 'The thing is, we don't really know what we're doing,' I confessed. 'We have grown some beans and potatoes, but it was more by good luck than good judgment.'
Learning context
I realised that this chance meeting with Ken Ebdon was my opportunity to use the expertise of a local gardener to help us get started. I asked Ken if he would be willing to visit our unit in the spring and share some of his gardening wisdom with us. He readily agreed, adding that in the past, he had many visits from school children to look at his vegetable plots.
This term our learning context 'Changes and Differences' focuses on springtime, life cycles and particularly new growth. So in March, after all the snow had finally gone, I phoned Ken and reminded him of our conversation the previous autumn: was he still willing to help us get started with our growing project? He happily agreed to visit us and share his knowledge and experience.
Observations
Before Ken's visit we had much preparation to do. After our raised beds were assembled by our site manager, the first job was to fill them with soil. This activity took a whole week, with children and staff working together barrowing a ton of topsoil from the car park to our gardening area.
Initially, we had more soil on the path than in the beds. But gradually the children witnessed the beds filling up and learned their first lessons in how to create a suitable place to plant vegetables, as well as how to manoeuvre a heavy wheelbarrow full of soil without it tipping over!
When I had phoned Ken, his first advice was to buy some shallots, as these were an easy first crop to handle and plant. So, one afternoon, a group from the unit set off to Raines, our local store, on a mission to buy shallots. The shop has a wonderful array of flower and vegetable seeds, beans and potatoes to choose from, and after much discussion and deliberation we returned with rather more purchases than we had originally intended.
Before Ken arrived I explained to the children that, although I was their teacher, I didn't know everything! I didn't know very much about growing vegetables, fruit or flowers. So, I had asked a very special visitor with 'green fingers' to come into school to help and advise us on how to plant up our newly filled raised beds. 'Has he been painting with green paint?' was one question!
Once in our dedicated gardening area, Ken showed the children how to plant the shallots with their shoots pointing upwards and the bottom end nestling in the soil, but not totally covered up. The children eagerly crowded around Ken as he demonstrated the technique, keen to have a go.
After some discussion, we decided that the shallots needed water to grow. It took some sharing and turn-taking before every child had had a chance to plant and water, but by the end of the morning we had planted up one of our raised beds. We had also bought peas and beans from the shop, which Ken had advised us to soak before planting them. Again we had plenty of willing volunteers to soak the peas and beans in a shallow bowl, ready to plant up the following day. Ken agreed to return at a later date with some leek seedlings to plant up in the second bed.
One week later we inspected our shallots and realised that some had been planted upside down. Once we had checked they were planted correctly, we gently lifted them out of the bed to see if anything had happened - and yes - roots were already starting to sprout from the base! Every day now we check our beds for signs of new life. Hopefully, after the Easter holidays, we will return to some green top shoots.
Evaluations and Reflections
Thanks to the initial input by our gardening expert, we have successfully launched our new project on growth, a project that will continue into the autumn term. Since his first visit, we have gone on to plant broad beans, sunflowers, nasturtium seeds and sweet peas.
The children (and adults) now have a new confidence in their gardening ability. In our gardening area we have set up a planting station complete with trug filled with top soil, a stack of variously sized plant pots, trowels and watering cans, and a selection of seeds and beans, so that children can access these resources independently.
No doubt we will end up with stray sunflowers in the shallot bed and rogue beans in the flower border. But as long as we are actively engaged in the process of growing, we can live with a random and informal planting plan.
Hopefully, in the autumn term our efforts will be rewarded with a bumper crop of produce, some of which we intend to enter in the Chrysanthemum Show, ensuring the continuation of a new generation of gardeners.
- Tessa Fenoughty is foundation stage teacher at Middleton-in-Teesdale Primary School, Co Durham
LEARNING OUTCOMES
We initially anticipated that most learning opportunities would cover the area of learning, Knowledge and Understanding of the World. However, once again, as we reflected on the experiences, we realised that the learning outcomes were many and varied:
- Showing independence in selecting tools and equipment and carrying out planting activities;
- Learning social skills and talking to adult visitors to the setting;
- Showing care and concern for living things by tending to newly planted crops;
- Showing a sense of being part of the local community and its events, such as the Chrysanthemum Show;
- Responding to simple instructions, such as how to create a raised bed and plant shallots, beans and peas;
- Building up and extending vocabulary associated with planting activity such as rake, trowel, shallots, raised beds, roots and shoots;
- Knowing that information is relayed in the form of print by reading seed packets and labels at the shop;
- Counting out shallots and weighing them to price them;
- Estimating how many shallots we needed to fill our raised bed;
- Using language such as more and less to compare quantities of seed, beans and shallots bought;
- Showing an interest in shapes of potatoes, shallots, sunflower seeds;
- Using positional language, for example when planting shallots on top of soil, sunflower seeds in the soil;
- Showing curiosity and interest in the features of objects and living things;
- Looking at similarities and differences between shallots, potatoes, seeds, beans and peas;
- Understanding of time and seasons of the year and cycle of growyh and decay;
- Finding out about their environment and being able to identify features in the place where they live;
- Operating equipment by means of pulling and pushing, such as the wheel barrow, spade, trowel and rake;
- Collaborating in devising and sharing the task of filling the raised beds with soil;
- Using a range of gardening equipment independently and safely while exercising increasing control.
