Our Stories – Redwood Park Academy
With the incredible teachers still teaching the children of Key Workers, we wanted to share last year's winners story from Redwood Park Academy. We have had so many wonderful teachers still letting us know what they're doing in their school gardens during this time and we are very grateful for all you are doing.
The garden has developed over the last 3 school years from an underused space with an empty greenhouse into a thriving project that involves around 150 young people from across The Solent Academies Trust to access and enjoy horticulture. Many of the students who use the garden have complex learning difficulties, physical disabilities or other additional needs.
As they have developed the garden, adaptations have been made to improve access to all that use the space. They have raised beds at a variety of different heights, aiming for them to be workable from the wheelchairs, standers or chairs of young people of all ages. Large pictorial plant labelling is used throughout the gardens in a style the students are familiar with. Tools have been adapted and they have developed their own solutions; using giant funnels for filling pots, drainpipes for planting potatoes or flexible tree protectors as tubes to drop smaller seeds or bulbs down. They always find a suitable task for everyone in the garden.
The students have helped develop of all aspects of the space; building and filling raised beds, constructing poly-tunnels and second greenhouse, developing the environmental spaces with a rebuilt pond and planting hedges. A clay pizza oven has been built to make full use of the produce grown in the garden. Their hens give many eggs and more importantly many hours of pleasure to those who care for and visit them. The 15 outdoor raised beds, 4 ground level plots and 4 polytunnel beds contain a mix of permanent planting; soft fruit, hops, herbs and annual vegetables and flowers, as well as a number of dwarf stock fruit trees; apples, cherries a pear and a plum.
The fresh fruit and vegetable produced in the garden is eaten or sold across the Trust, with much being made into jams and chutneys during the colder months. The flowers grown are used to brighten up offices and shared spaces as well as being used in floral displays for their Leavers Proms.
The evidence for mental and physical health benefits of garden are rightly becoming better and more widely recognised, and they are noticing the calming effects of working outside on their young people every day. Exercise and fresh air are only a small part of this. Their peaceful space can support quiet reflection and communication and social interaction. The incidental learning opportunities (in maths, English and science for example) provided in one sessions gardening are almost unlimited.
The garden team aims to increase the access even further by having more working spaces across the grounds. The garden will continue to be productive in food and flowers but are increasing its sensory provision, developing permanent planting spaces for textural, scented and plants with unusual auditory qualities.
If this story has inspired you, register for 2020 today and let us know what you've been doing in your school or community garden.
