Gardening

At Sacred Heart School we strive to provide opportunities for our pupils to understand and reflect on the need to care for God’s world. Through Pope Francis' encyclical, Laudato Si, we aim to develop our pupils’ understanding of ‘caring for our common home’ through the idea of sustainability. This runs throughout our whole school with a focus on raising pupils’ awareness of the need to reduce, reuse and recycle.

This forms a major part of our Gardening curriculum, called ‘Growing Outside’. We provide opportunities for children to take part in weekly gardening sessions with a specialist gardener, using the fruit and vegetables from our allotment areas and herb gardens.

Children are encouraged to think about the environmental impact of the foods we eat and materials we use as packaging and are challenged to create new and innovative designs in recycling the materials we find around us.

Children explore aspects of gardening through a sequence of carefully planned activities that reflect the seasonal changes and natural resources of our local area. Topics that have been covered include making natural decorations out of bundles of sticks and berries; constructing bird feeders to support our local wildlife; creating our own compost and recognising materials that can/can’t be used in a compost bin and the important role of worms to our environment; investigating the importance of soil and how we can make our own. Further examples of our activities can be seen below in our weekly newsletters from Growing Outdoors.

Our aim is that children from Sacred Heart School will develop a deeper understanding of nature and the delicate balance it is in when we consider technological advancements and pollution that we have to contend with on a daily basis. ‘Caring for our common home’ is at the heart of our Gardening curriculum.

Growing Outdoors Newsletter March 2022 - YR - Planting Potatoes

Growing Outdoors Newsletter Feb 2022 - YR - Seed Sowing

Growing Outdoors Newsletter Feb 2022 - Y4 - Microgreens

Growing Outdoors Newsletter Feb 2022 - Y3 - Shrubs

Growing Outdoors Newsletter Jan 2022 - Y6 - Bird Feeders

Growing Outdoors Newsletter Jan 2022 - Y2 - Compost

Growing Outdoors Newsletter Feb 2021 - Y1,2,3, Microgreens

Growing Outdoors Newsletter Jan 2021 - Y4,5,6 Bird Feeders

Growing Outdoors Newsletter Jan 2021 - Y1,2,3 Bird Feeders

Growing Outdoors Newsletters Jan 2021 - Y4,5,6 Compost

Growing Outdoors Newsletter Jan 2021 - Y1,2,3 Soil

Growing Outdoors Newsletter Y6 Dec 2020