Chelsea Flower Show
In May, we showcased the School Food Matters Garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show to celebrate and promote food education and children’s access to nature. It was a great success! Our garden, designed by the brilliant Harry Holding, won the People’s Choice Award (Sanctuary/All About Plants category) and the RHS Silver-Gilt Medal.
Following the show, the garden was relocated to its new home – Alec Reed Academy in Ealing and The Beacon CE Primary School in Liverpool – where children and the communities will benefit for many years to come.
Since then
Heartened by the public response to our Chelsea garden, we were eager to translate this incredible support into outdoor learning opportunities for more children. So, we launched our first-ever Crowdfunder last month with the goal of delivering 1,000 gardening sessions in schools across the country.
Food education programmes
In July, we had 21 market days across the country, where school children involved with our Young Marketeers, Know your Onions and Schools to Market programmes sold their school-grown fruit/veg, and chutneys/jams, raising money for great causes. As part of these programmes, the children took part in gardening and cooking, with the help of school gardeners and food teachers. They also visited farms to explore and pick fresh ingredients and participated in workshops to learn, for example, how to market their fresh produce.
Our Welcome sessions have continued in Sheffield and London, giving recently arrived refugee children the chance to explore the natural world with an expert gardener in a fun and calm environment.
The joyful learning continues! Our Holiday Food and Fun programme starts again this week, providing fun activities and hot, healthy meals to children over the summer break.
Healthy Zones
Our Healthy Zones programme has continued to go from strength to strength. To date, our team of nutritionists has worked with 50 schools to make sustained changes to menus and policies, making the healthy choice, the easy choice. And from the next academic year, the team will be working in a new London borough. Our HZ team also recently produced an online healthy school food policy guide that schools across the country can use.
