Growing at Castle Hill School

A Real Learning Curve at Todmorden Schools

Every school in Todmorden now has food growing on the site of their school in all sorts of ways. Some in raised beds; some in allotment areas; some in recycled tyres and any other containers that spring to mind.
At the Agricultural show this year every school participated in the growing competition – growing in unusual containers

Some of the schools worked the competition into their curriculum and some worked across the whole school to fire the childrens’ imaginations about growing food across the entire age range of the school

A group of parents at Castle Hill set about transforming the bland expanse
of tarmac playground into more of a living learning landscape.
An unused overgrown area of land at one end of the playground was cleared with advice from the Woodland Trust to create a beautiful nature area which is now used
for outdoor learning activities and houses the schools recently acquired chickens!

The chickens have added to the learning experience of the children as they are involved in the day to day looking after of the hens – feeding, watering and collecting the eggs.

The eggs have been used for various cooking activities in school. A pond was built and a great allotment area where the children grow vegetables for use in the school kitchen.

Recycled tyres have been used to create garden areas in the playground – filled with soil and planted with strawberries, blackcurrants, raspberries, and blackberries etc

Raised beds have been built in the playground and offered for community use.
All the beds have been adopted and are now bursting with fruit and vegetables.

These developments in the playground have not only made it a more pleasant place to be but have enhanced the learning environment of the school giving the children an outdoor environment which reconnects them with nature and raises their awareness of food and where it comes from.
The IET incubator has visited many of the Primary schools in Todmorden and with the help of Mary’s cockerel has enabled the children to observe chickens being hatched in the classroom.

The next step is to increase the capacity of the parents network and to support and encourage the schools to focus on sustainability and food in their curriculum. We have made links with Food for Life Partnership who are going to help the Primary schools work more closely with the local Secondary school to create a more seamless link between the schools around the issues of food and sustainability.