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Things to do this Summer Term

As well as being a fantastic time of year to bring your school garden to life, the summer term is the perfect opportunity to celebrate getting outdoors and being healthy. Here are just four of the many great national initiatives that help you do just that.

23 May 2019 – Outdoor Classroom Day

Outdoor Classroom Day is a global campaign to celebrate and inspire outdoor learning and play. On the day, thousands of schools around the world take lessons outdoors and prioritise playtime. In 2018, over 3.5 million children worldwide took part and more than half a million of those were in the UK and Ireland.

Outdoor learning improves children’s health, engages them with learning and leads to a greater connection with nature. Play not only teaches critical life skills such as resilience, teamwork and creativity, but is central to children’s enjoyment of childhood.

Taking part is easy – simply sign your school up on the Outdoor Classroom Day website and take a look at all the free lessons plans, inspiring stories and resources available on the site.

Get involved

1-2 June 2019 – The Big Lunch

The Big Lunch is about millions of people getting together to share food, have fun and get to know each other better. This June, people around the UK will stop what they’re doing and get together in a nationwide act of community and friendship.

Schools, at the centre of community life, are perfectly positioned to host a Big Lunch; which can be anything from a small gathering of students and parents within the school grounds, to a full-blown community party with food, music and decoration. It’s the perfect time to show off your school garden and school-grown produce too!

The official dates for this year’s Big Lunch are the 1-2 June 2019, but you can hold one any time that works for your school.

Big Lunch tips and resources for schools

3rd – 14 June 2019 – Farming Fortnight

The aim of Farming Fortnight is for primary and secondary schools across the UK to have a fortnight’s focus on British Farming and Food Production. With young people often being disconnected from the origins of their food and the people behind the story of their food, the fortnight has been developed for students and their teachers to engage with and understand farming and food production.

The initiative has been developed by LEAF in partnership with Brockhill Park Performing Arts College and is supported by Countryside Classroom. There are several themes that schools are invited to look at over the fortnight, covering all aspects of farming and food production.

Download Farming Fortnight resources and videos

10-14 June 2019 – Healthy Eating Week

The British Nutrition Foundation’s (BNF) Healthy Eating Week is a dedicated week in the year to encourage organisations, universities and schools across the UK to focus on healthy eating and drinking, physical activity and celebrate healthy living.

At the heart of BNF Healthy Eating Week are five health challenges:

Have breakfast
Have 5 A DAY
Drink plenty
Get active
Sleep well – NEW for 2019

Schools participating in BNF Healthy Eating Week usually focus on one of the challenges each day, but it’s up to you to decide what your organisation will do and when. Some organisations focus on just one challenge throughout the week whereas others take on all five!

Find out more

Train a trainer with Food for Life in Greenwich

Transforming food culture

One of our Food Growing Schools: London partners, Soil Association Food for Life is working with the London Royal Borough of Greenwich to transform food culture in the borough.

Alexander McLeod Primary School in Abbey Wood hosted a few keen people on 5 Dec 2017 who had food growing and healthy cooking on their minds as part of the Food for Life Train the Trainer partnership in Greenwich.

The project is about community-based people training others in areas of food education linked to promoting a healthy lifestyle through food, both in growing healthy food and then also using that healthy food to prepare meals.

Train a trainer

The food growing element of the training was led by Garden Organic’s Associate Liz Davies. She took participants through the elements of the Food for Life awards criteria, whole school approach to food education linked to the primary curriculum, organic growing in schools and also composting in schools.

Integrating organic growing with the primary curriculum focusing on Food for Life activities including school community engagement brought everything to life by using the school’s glorious growing space as a foundation for learning.

The afternoon finished with participants’ trialing practical activities highlighting health and safety considerations in schools along with curriculum planning and seed saving ideas.

Events like these help to gather bright minds and great ideas, to help build stronger, healthier communities.

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If you’d like to find out more about the Soil Association Food For Life programme and related initiatives, please visit their website.

Grandparent Gardening Week!

It’s that time of year again. Every Spring FGSL project partners Soil Association Food for Life (FFL) encourage schools around the UK to get growing – with the support of grandparents! Grandparent Gardening Week takes place from 27-31 March 2017.

For beginners, food growing in school can seem a little daunting, but with the right support from the local community it can be surprisingly fun, and a great opportunity for all generations to learn together using the garden. Grandparents often come with bags of gardening enthusiasm, knowledge, experience and time to share with the younger generations. That’s why they’re perfect for helping in schools too.

Hosting a gardening activity
Ask a team of students to lead the Grandparent Gardening Week activities, involving your school cook and DT lead. Ask what crops they would like to see grown, think about where they might plant them or how your school cook could use them in their recipes, linking the crops with the kitchen and classroom learning. Share ideas and plans across the school to involve everyone in the fun! The Food for Life Awards Package provides plenty of expert growing resources, including Garden Organic growing cards. For a template poster, media invite and press release visit: Grandparent Gardening Week.

Spring into Growing – Plan it. Build it. Grow it!
You can also dip into FGSL Spring into Growing 2017 resources to help you get growing together on Grandparent Gardening Day. For more ideas on how to work with your local community visit FGSL Support.

Get your grandparents involved – happy growing together!

Grandparent Gardening Week

New Year. New Resolutions!

It’s all getting a bit festive. Lights, Christmas trees, the smell of mince pies! But before we know it frosty mornings will soon turn to sunny, spring days. So, start 2017 with a New Year resolution! A school garden fit for growing healthy food, learning skills and sharing knowledge, whatever the size or space.

Spring into Growing 2017 – Plan it. Build it. Grow it!

Join Food Growing Schools: London and schools all across London for Spring into Growing 2017, from January to March 2017. With our expert guidance, learn the secrets to planning and constructing your school garden, working with recycled materials and nature, and developing a productive growing space, with the help of your local community.

A healthy start to the new year

But why grow? London schools are starting to see the incredible benefits of growing food in schools – benefits to health, education, the community, the environment and even the local economy. It’s a no brainer! Discover what they are here: Why Grow?

Free food growing resources for schools

We’ve gathered together some really useful school activity sheets and growing guides to help your school, under the following themes:

Have a look at our Spring into Growing 2017 resources to get stuck in.

Gardening as a tool for teaching curriculum subjects

Food growing is also a great tool for learning, across a wide range of curriculum subjects – including Design, Engineering and Technology, Maths, Science and so much more. So growing food provides new ideas, to add inspiration to teaching and learning in 2017. Check out our Resources for ideas, tips, growing tools and activity sheets.

School food growing doesn’t have to cost the earth.

School gardens don’t have to be expensive. They can be constructed using reclaimed and recycled materials. With the help of parents, teachers and the local community it’s great fun collecting together all the materials, tools and knowledge you need to get started, together. Here are some ideas for working with your local community.

Planning your school activities for 2017?

Join in with Spring into Growing 2017 – Plan it. Build it. Grow it!

Look what we achieved!

Over the summer 2016, while you were all enjoying the summer holidays, we took a moment to reflect on the amazing time we have had as a partnership, helping London schools to grow food.

So much has happened to be proud of.

We know we have achieved a lot, but we were amazed to see how much! Research teams from the University of the West England (Bristol) and Cardiff University, carried out an independent FGSL project evaluation. Here’s a snapshot of what they found. Since our launch in 2013 and October 2016:

James Campbell, Chief Executive, Garden Organic said:

“I am deeply proud of what we have achieved so far — 87% of London schools are now growing food and considerably more pupils, parents, community members and businesses are involved.”

Our Achievements – read the report
You can read more about our achievements in our special FGSL Interim Report, launched at City Hall in October 2016.

Together we made it happen
Thank you to everyone who has helped us achieve so much since 2013 – from teachers, volunteers and local businesses, to FGSL staff and funders – to name but a few. Without you none of this would have been possible. A huge thanks also goes to our fantastic FGSL Partners, who are busy every day sharing their expertise with schools:

Garden Organic (lead partner)
Capital Growth
Soil Association Food for Life
Royal Horticultural Society
School Food Matters
Trees for Cities

Don’t stop now!
Together, we have discovered the huge benefits of growing food in schools – improving young people’s education, health, the environment, the local economy and the impact on the local community. It’s vital now that we all continue to work together to help young people in our schools keep growing and flourishing.

Whether you are already growing food in your school, you wish to get started, or you represent an organisation who can help, here are just a few of our fantastic resources to help you get involved:

Food Growing Schools: London – Sowing Ideas. Growing Inspiration. Cultivating Futures.

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