North Arm Primary School
They already had a vegie garden and chooks. The teacher
from North Arm School Fiona Ball, who asked me to come and run a
short program at the school, was the very person who had taught
me all about the edible school gardens program. We had worked
together at Nambour State School setting up their garden, and
here she was, asking me to come to her school. I asked WHY?
and the answer did make sense - sometimes you need someone from
outside your school community to 'fire up' school projects and
that was all they needed.
It was another short term project - about 4 visits including set
up. We were using borders that were already in the garden
just redesigning and adding more features such as herb spirals
and a worm bath.
All year levels were involved with a long term view of having
'buddies' so that the older kids could teach the younger
ones. It was complicated having all age groups together as
that meant lots of little kids needing 1 on 1 assistance but the
work got done.
Perhaps in future, we should teach the older students first (Year
5 upwards) then they can buddy up with the lower primary
students.
Parents are very involved with the garden and teachers are also
using it.
Note from Leonie:
As the Edible School Gardens program is being developed and
constantly improved, it is important that I look back on each
school and evaluate how the program ran in that school and if it
could have been done differently to make it more
successful. Here I talk honestly about all those
things that could have been done differently so that hopefully
you won't make the same mistakes.