It requires an awful lot of effort from an already stretched staff body. Gardening in schools is messy, time-consuming and some might even consider it unsanitary.
It is much easier to teach the same skills theoretically through science lessons using online, digital media, and perhaps “virtual gardens” for example. Much cleaner and more orderly. Much less hassle – no muddy knees and no boring “waiting around”. Despite these unfashionable downsides, “Gardens” have been a firm feature of Cottesmore School life for over 127 years.
The purpose of gardening in the UK has certainly changed over the last 100 years. It was originally a skill necessary for survival, before the ubiquity of the modern supermarket; incidentally the first UK supermarket opened in 1948, 54 years after Cottesmorians first started growing their own produce.
The Second World War heralded the Ministry of Agriculture’s Dig for Victory campaign and families across the country were encouraged to grow their own food in times of harsh rationing. In a post-Brexit, post-global-pandemic and mid-war era, a looming recession, “food miles” consciousness and climate change might increase the necessity for vegetable and food growing knowledge.
“Gardening was originally a skill necessary for survival, before the ubiquity of the modern supermarket.”
Cottesmore girls and boys are given a gardening plot; much tilling and cultivating takes place. Seeds are planted and weeds extracted. The vegetables and fruit are eaten and the plants and flowers admired. Prizes are awarded at the end of term. A cool side-benefit is that some of the vegetables continue to grow over the summer holidays and when the children return, they are met with the most enormous produce that can be cooked in the kitchens for lunch or supper.
The bigger cultural picture is that a raft of traditional school activities is being thrown out in favour of more “up-to-date” pastimes. More than ever, the culling of activities and topics to make room for others that will ensure regulatory compliance is a pastime in which all modern independent school leaders must, willingly or not, take part.
Rugby, Latin, rounders, field hockey, letter writing, examinations, competitive sport, nativity plays and even the very act of learning itself are all under close scrutiny at present. Gardening in schools is at the bottom of the curriculum food chain.
So what is the point of it? Why teach children to garden? Why does gardening deserve a place in an already overcrowded curriculum?
“The activity is at the bottom of the curriculum food chain.”
From a very personal point of view, the main reason is that the act of gardening is the perfect antidote to post-pandemic lockdown screen culture. We spend too much time sitting, staring at screens, disconnected from the people and environments that physically surround us IRL or “in real life”.
What we are saying to the people standing and sitting next to us when we are on a screen is that everything and “everyone I can connect with on this device is more important than you”. The way we do gardening at Cottesmore means that increased social real-life connection is inevitable – you have to communicate with your team, you have to collaborate and put in the hours together. It requires forethought, planning, patience and hard work.
Sustainability education is a must in the current climate. Anything that engages children with the concept of sustainability is surely a plus. At Cottesmore we are engaged in developing the “Sustainability Programme for Schools” run by the The Kindness Bank. We have timetabled a discrete sustainability lesson within the curriculum and growing our own food fits in very well with the aims of this syllabus.
“It is the perfect antidote to post-pandemic lockdown screen culture.”
I am loathe to write about “grounding”, as it is likely to be viewed by some as pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo. But I love the idea of it. It is also called earthing, and it is a therapeutic technique that involves doing activities that “ground” or reconnect you to the earth. Why not take your shoes off outside and feel the potential benefits?
For now Cottesmore is keeping gardening on the curriculum for the foreseeable future.
Quick reference – the benefits of gardening in schools for children:
- * Stress relief: mycobacterium vaccae in soil microbes is said to stimulate serotonin production.
- * Increased motivation to eat healthily: studies show that children are more likely to eat vegetables if they have experienced growing them.
- * Increased organisational and planning skills: initiation, planning and organization skills are practised.
- * Augmented STEM learning & vocabulary: the team gardening process encourages the learning of new language and creative thought processes.
- * Responsibility & patience: anything that can combat instant gratification culture is a bonus.
- * Cooperation & collaboration: teamwork, leadership and compromise are all experienced when managing a shared garden.
- * Agency and self-confidence and sense of competence: seeing the fruits of one’s labour after careful planning and hard work is invaluable.
- * Nurturing a love of nature: more than ever, the world needs people who understand the way the natural world works.
- * Improvements to physical health: moderate exercise and increased vitamin D production necessary for physical growth and development are incidental benefits.
