St John's School Garden

We have a polytunnel, 8 deep beds for veg, and an orchard. We run it on no dig and organic principles. There are opportunities for general gardening and site work at various times of day and well has opportunities to propagate plants at home to put in the garden. We also need leaders for the Tuesday after school gardening club, both gardening and food prep (the children really enjoy eating the food they have grown). Those working with the children may need a DBS and will need other safe recruitment checks but there are other tasks at other times. In 2026 we plan to develop a new herb bed and an area of flowers for pollinators. There are big patches of brambles that need clearing in the orchard and all sorts of other things that can be done. We are keen to help novices and those with existing experience develop new gardening skills. We already host employer supported volunteering for Forestry England and are happy to offer it to other groups. There are potential development projects in other ares of the school site as well. We have been running since Sept 2023 and the impact on the children has been wonderful: they have learnt how to grow their own food, and experienced the joy of preparing and eating the fresh salads, veg and fruit that they have grown. They have learnt that things that don't look perfect can taste better than anything from the shops, have expanded the range of what they will eat and have worked through to the Royal Horticultural Society Level 4 award.