Schools

It’s our passionate belief that young people need to understand the importance of local food and making food culture school culture is key to this.By educating our young people about growing and cooking food we are creating a resilient community for an uncertain future – like an ark in the flood. (Actually the picture shows our first work with schools: providing each with a growing boat like this)

We’ve worked hard at developing relationships with the schools in Todmorden. Head of Catering at Tod High School Tony Mulgrew has been involved with IET from the beginning
With him we’ve developed links with the Food For Life Partnership (FFLP) who are all about changing food culture in schools. The High School have achieved the Bronze Award for Food For Life, and all the primary schools in the town are now part of a cluster which allows them to benefit from support and training from FFLP.

Now every school in Todmorden is actively involved in growing food. Each year now n the annual Agricultural Show children let their imaginations run wild in growing in unusual containers for our inspiring competition. The grounds of the High School are to be the home of the fish farm, and currently there’s a student-promoted project to keep chickens so they can have their own eggs.

We’ve also facilitated free staff training through the FFLP for primary school teachers in Todmorden around local food culture and we’ve supported the start of parents groups in each school – you can see the evidence of parents getting stuck in.
We are now the first town in the country to have a town-wide schools orchard where all the primary schools have fruit trees planted at the High School and partner trees in their own grounds.

It’s our dream that all the schools in Todmorden become living learning landscapes where children receive an education that will provide them with the skills and knowledge they need to live a healthy happy and sustainable future. Some of these children might just be inspired to set up business locally around local food production in the future – now that would be truly Incredible.