Horticulture students help school create outdoor space

Horticulture students help school create outdoor space
Level 1 Horticulture students from the Rodbaston Campus of South Staffordshire College are helping to create a delightful outdoor and garden area for the children who attend St. Leonards CE First School in Dunston, Stafford.

The school had new buildings put up in the summer and along with the necessary clearing up work it was decided to take the opportunity to provide an outdoor area that children could appreciate and enjoy.

As the result of a initial contact between the school's teaching assistant Judith Smythe and South Staffordshire College's Land-Based Industry Liaison Manager Gerard Proudman, the College's Horticulture students are involved in a wide range of improvements on the site, including slab laying, moving sheds, re-siting and digging out a new pond, fencing and the creation of raised beds and planters.  The installation of play areas will complete the makeover, creating a delightful and safe environment for the children.

St. Leonards school at Dunston is proud of its permanent ECO-School status and has won area and national recognition for its environmental work, with a cultivated garden, a wild garden and pond for pupils to enjoy.

From a South Staffordshire College perspective, the project has twin objectives; to help provide the best possible outcome for the schoolchildren and to learn the disciplines, management skills, planning and working to deadlines that are involved in a genuine project.

Gerard Proudman says "This is a work programme that has all the same requirements that our learners will face as entrepreneurs running their own businesses or as skilled employers when they leave College.  The added bonus here is the expectation of a wonderful learning environment for young children."

Judith Smythe is the High Level Teaching Assistant at St. Leonards who is responsible for all the children's outdoor activities.

"When we had a new building put up, we lost some of our existing outdoor space and needed help to reclaim areas that had suffered as an inevitable result of the building work.

"Gerard Proudman replied on behalf of South Staffordshire College to an appeal in our newsletter and we have been absolutely delighted with the help that has resulted from his call. I can't speak highly enough of the students, they have been absolutely fantastic in their work and their relationship with the children."

Together the school and the college are busy creating vegetable gardens, helping the children to understand where their food comes from and, in an area with strong links to the farming community, underlining the natural relationship between the two educational establishments.

Judith concludes: "In the eight years I have been with the school we have won a number of Eco based awards for our work covering sustainability, green awards, healthy schools and our garden plans.  Our ethos here is to promote the spiritual, moral and cultural development of pupils and our outdoor work is a large contributor to that.

"With the help of the staff and students at South Staffordshire College we are achieving another major milestone along our way."

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