Hertfordshire Gardens Trust | Helping Schools To Garden

HGT School Grounds Awards 2009

Yet again there was a fine crop of entries for the annual awards from across the county from both rural and urban primary schools. Despite having simplified the application forms, judging all the diverse projects against each other is a difficult task and we were very grateful to Roger Cooke our administrator for his judicial interventions which kept us focused.

We were delighted to give 16 awards, six of which contributed a sizable sum towards their projects. The judges also think it makes sense to award smaller sums to as many schools as we can. With some projects this is a toe in the water, the beginning of a project. For others our award gives the school the chance to finish an exciting project or expand an already successful one so more children can join in. In the case of one school they had a small garden area for KS1 and wanted to develop a second one for KS2. They had a wheelbarrow workshop getting the children starting growing, involved parents, collected supermarket vouchers for tools and got support form the parish rangers and local suppliers. We could help them by funding a much needed new outside tap.

It is exciting to hear that there are so many growing projects getting going in schools and I think we should be proud of our contributions to them. Apart from the obvious benefits in using gardening in the curriculum, we share similar goals. As one teacher put it in their application form, "we hope to see children growing and cooking their produce, to produce and create delicious healthy food. We hope this will help our children make life-long healthy choices and take home the enthusiasm for growing their own food and inspiring local families to grow fruit and vegetables in their own gardens."