Compass

Gardening Club worked in co-operation with school canteen and used produce from the garden to provide stovies and fruit crumble at the school ceilidh.

The nursery combined our One Plant Picnic with a fundraising "Onesie Wellie Walk" to raise funds for a Nursery Garden project.  We made courgette soup from our own onions and courgettes; apple sponge (made with our school grown apples) and cooked local sausages on our fire pit.  We had lots of fun and raised money for new garden equipment.

Pupils prepared a community supper for local people.  Some spent the day cooking with a local chef in the school kitchen, preparing dishes from locally sourced ingredients.

Crookfur Health Focus Group encourages children from P2 to P7 to work together to promote a healthy lifestyle amongst their peers.  Last session we worked really well together to plant and tend a crop of potatoes.  We managed to harvest enough to sell small bags of potatoes to parents and also to cook spicy potato salad in class.  We are enjoying working with our parent helpers to weed, plan and plant within our school grounds.  Our dinner ladies will help us use our produce to make delicious dishes.  The ECO Group are currently building a plastic bottle greenhouse to grow vegetables in.

The Upper Primary pupils collated recipes from the local community that could use locally grown produce, including vegetables and fruit from the school garden and poly tunnel.  The children used ICT and enterprise skills to organise a local sale to make, then sell a recipe book.  Children used the funds raised to purchase garden supplies.  Collaborative working to produce and sell  the recipe book can be followed by collaborative decisions on how to invest the funds.

Our apple trees have now started to produce fruit, so this year we have tried many apple recipes for snack.  It has really captured the children's interest with all the children experimenting with the tastes.  Lots of food preparation, tasting and talking about the apples we have grown.

We are running a whole school bee project.  We got funding and bought a bee hive for school which is sited on a nearby farm.  All pupils in the school are involved from nursery to P7 with visits to the hive (wearing our bee suits); finding out about pollination and having "Bee Weeks" every term.  In Spring, we will extract/sell our own honey. 

Our children have taken part in a One Planet Picnic for the past 3 years and have thoroughly enjoyed this initiative.  All produce used on this day is either local, Fair Trade or grown by the nursery.  Children bring their favourite teddy bear and dress in traditional Scottish dress for the day.  Fair Trade Fortnight activities also take place with children bringing in food packaging for displays to show labels and logos which we can use for treasure hunts within supermarket visits.

We grow our own vegetables which we use for making snacks at Nursery.  We entered the local Horticulture Show and won 3rd prize for our potatoes.  Last year we planted apple and pear trees and are looking forward to seeing them growing this year.

We grew a tunnel of beans in our sensory garden.  We are a special school and this was a great success.  The younger children and wheelchair users loved running through the tunnel and everyone got to eat the beans at lunch time.

We have held a One Planet Picnic, which tied in with a visit to a local producer.  We have ties with a local business which recycles food waste who provide us with soil enhancer for our raised fruit and veg beds.  We have successfully grown a wide variety of foods which have been cooked in class and thoroughly enjoyed.

On our Eco day one of our activities was "Apple Pressing".  We had already collected the apples from the trees in the school garden and washed them.  A parent, with an apple press, came into school and showed us how to press the apples to get the juice.  We had collected 200+ bottles which meant that each child was able to take home a bottle of completely pure, organic apple juice. 

We have had a focus on learning about Scotland and a comparison country so we could make and sample food from India/Pakistan/China using produce we had grown.  Pupils LOVED picking the vegetables and preparing the dishes.

We won "Best Children Produce" and many other prizes in the local agricultural show in September 2014.  There was extensive community involvement, erecting and using poly tunnel including residents of nearby Care Centre helping with watering, harvesting and preserving produce.  We raised money for the school fund selling fresh produce and preserves.  Our school canteen cooked our "tatties" and "peas" for lunch.  Pupils discovering new foods they like, having grown them themselves and tried them at school.

We made a celebration cake as pie chart.  It's a cake, it's a pie, it's a cake...

We are a Fair Trade School and we had a "bake off" where staff, parents and pupils were asked to bake a cake using fair trade products.  Judges included Manager of Co-Op who provided some ingredients and owner of local restaurant.  Winners were in local paper and we sold produce to raise funds for charity.

During our School's 40th Anniversary Fun Day, every class got the opportunity to cook.  The upper school was cooking outdoors using an open fire and the infants were making pakora with visitors from a local business. 

Monitoring of change in volume of compost - it goes up and it goes down.

Each class has grown own produce.  We have made soup, jam, crumble etc. from our produce.  Our canteen ladies often use our produce.  We have just opened our new polytunnel which should enable us to continue growing in colder weather.  We carry out cold/hot composting and have worked closely with RoWan to reduce our food waste.

Our Eco pupils helped the Pre-5's to harvest our carrots and potatoes and make soup.  It was fantastic.  We also ran a summer gardening club twice a week over the summer holidays - on average 14 children and their parents turned out each time.  We enjoyed eating the beautifully ripe summer berries (rasps, blueberries, wild strawbs and some early brambles) as a reward for our hard working "staff".

Catering manager (Sodexho employee) used a little tractor symbol to identify clearly on the menu which items inlcuded locally sourced ingredients.

We have carried out several "One Planet Picnics".  They were successful because a lot of children were involved and worked right from the beginning of the process.  We grew veg's for soup which we cooked in the class, we also picked brambles and apples from our orchard for crumble.  The whole school joined in the picnic then the ECO Committee did a power point presentation to parents and visitors to tell them all about local food and cooking with fresh ingredients.

Brambles Café is run by Clackmannanshire Secondary Support Unit for the local community.  Customers are often local pensioners, so the cafe supports mutual intergenerational respect as well as a refreshing cuppa.

We grow produce in the school grounds every year and forage wild food.  We do this as part of Enterprise - both social and as part of finance education.  Our P7 children learn to cook at an extra-curricular club as part of Dynamic Youth run by parents volunteers who have undergone community learning and development training.  The cook uses produce in the kitchen too.  We grew from seed in our bottle greenhouse.

We have introduced food waste bins in dining hall and Home Economics Department no longer put waste in general landfill bins.  Our young chefs club create recipes from leftovers and use seasonal local products as part of their projects.  We are going to start growing our own vegetables and produce in our garden area in the Spring which will be used by Home Economics and school kitchen for meals for pupils.  Our Home Economics Department have also been involved in One Planet Picnic.

We are working with school's Fair Trade Committee about awareness of a Fair Trade Fruit of the Month.  For example, focussing on oranges, researching where they come from; how they get to our country, recipes, that we can make containing oranges and looking at cost and profit of selling the things we make at our upcoming Fair Trade Tuck Shop.  The Fair Trade Committee had a very successful Fair Trade Banana Tuck Shop recently.  These tuck shops are making the children in the committees more aware of where their food comes from and makes them realise the benefits of paying the farmers a fair price for their work.  The tuck shop are then educating the rest of the school and the children have even been talking about being more aware of looking for the Fair Trade label when out shopping with their parents.

We are running a whole school bee project.  We got funding and bought a bee hive for school which is sited on a nearby farm.  All pupils in the school are involved from nursery to P7 with visits to the hive (wearing our bee suits); finding out about pollination and having "Bee Weeks" every term.  In Spring, we will extract/sell our own honey.

We have a very successful food recycling group who help other pupils recycle food and food packaging waste.  They help reduce waste and teach younger pupils about recycling.  Our gardening group grow vegetables which they plan to use to make soup for homeless people.  Soup is made every week.   all pupils had opportunity to visit local Tesco to learn about food production; environmentally friendly packages, transport etc.

We have held a One Planet Picnic, which tied in with a visit to a local producer.  We have ties with a local business which recycles food waste who provide us with soil enhancer for our raised fruit and veg beds.  We have successfully grown a wide variety of foods which have been cooked in class and thoroughly enjoyed.

We raised money and purchased a Hot Box Composter.  We are now self sufficient in terms of all food waste.  We have large grounds and so use a lot of compost therefore we are also saving money in making our own compost.  We collect waste food from the Staff Room, Home Economics Room, Nursery, Dining Room and Playground for recycling.  We use waste food to grow more food!

Promoted ethical trading of imported foods by taking part in the 90kg rice challenge with Just Trading Scotland.

Appletree Nursery pride themselves on working closely with our local community Bute Produce, they donated rooted vegetables and fruit and our own home grown veg provided us with an eco planet picnic.  We grow our seeds/flowers/veg in our milk carton greenhouse - the community collected 6,000 milk cartons.  We have got a collection of tyres to put our vegetables in to grow.  The vegetables and fruit that we grow provide snack for our toddlers/pre-school.  We use our fruit peelings/food wastage to make compost and then the compost is used in our greenhouse.

P7 pupils were challenged to produce a new and exciting recipe for a smoothie that would be marketed at children of their own age group.  Working in partnership with industry provided an exciting opportunity for the children.  The professionals challenged the children to come up with a new smoothie recipe.  The children researched the market, the health benefits and seasonal availability of products they decided to include in their final recipe.  

Tattie o'metre, MONITORING of harvest.

We have been growing fruit and vegetables successfully for the past 2 years and have noticed that the children are making healthier choices when choosing their lunch menu knowing that the vegetables are from the school garden.

The pupils addressed a number of experiences and outcomes from Maths, Science, Literacy, Health and Wellbeing and Food Technology when they planted, grew (with and without manure), harvested and cooked 5 savoury potato dishes.

Larbert High School garden is now fully functional and sustainable in growing a range of fruits and veg.  These are grown by pupils and are then harvested and used by our Home Economics Department in the school; leads to reducing our carbon foot print for all food used in school.  We also grew 200 chilli plants to encourage our staff in school to start growing their own food at home or even on their classroom windowsills.  We are launching One Planet Picnic this year for all of our first years within the schools garden.

We have had a focus on learning about Scotland and a comparison country so we could make and sample food from India/Pakistan/China using produce we had grown.  Pupils LOVED picking the vegetables and preparing the dishes.

We gave the children the opportunity to grow their own potatoes as a few of the children were not keen on eating vegetables.  With the Gardening for Kids project the children grew potatoes and made potato salad.  Now the children know where they come from, they are now more confident at lunch times eating the vegetables.

Children who have packed lunches are no longer allowed to throw left-overs out.  They must go home.  This will help those at home to adjust portion sizes and reduce waste and cost.

A little audit identified that we could do better at reducing food waste.  We now collect food waste at lunch time and each class has a food caddy which the pupils are responsible for emptying each week into the main food caddy.  Food waste has visibly reduced and will be measured at our follow up audit. 

Our school allotment - Children learned and achieved a lot of planting, caring, harvesting produce from the allotment and eating with pride and enjoyment.  We had extremely positive support from parents (part of Families in Partnership Scheme) to encourage children to be "growers of the future".  Cooking food has created enthusiasm to acquire cooking skills and promote healthy eating.

Pupils have been involved in organising a lunch for parents during One Planet Picnic where it was based around local and Scottish food.

We have set up Buchlyvie Cook School.  This began by the children and teachers cooking sessions delivered by a trained chef.  The children then cooked 5 important healthy snacks and meals.  The best part was whole school lunch cooked by the children - Carrot Coriander soup; veg curry and chicken, ginger, lemon with rice and pasta; apple and blackcurrant pie with ice-cream.  Most of the ingredients were grown in the school garden.  We worked with the Catering Manager to serve the food on the day. 

The whole school was involved in a local food study "Potatoes".  This involved visitors coming to school; a trip to Tesco's and a trip to the Macduff Marine Aquarium.  We worked on the availability, sustainability and seasonality of foods.  Each class created a "Class Book" with a presentation at the end by P6/7 for parents.  "Pupil Planning" was used throughout the topic in all areas and stages of the school.  "Pupil Voice" was used throughout the topic also.

The One Planet Picnic really encouraged the children to make their own choices.  They were excited eating the food in raw form and discussing where it came from.  The children who contributed food from their gardens were really proud and excited about sharing their food.  The children also enjoyed bringing in veg from their gardens, chopping and preparing meals for others.

One Planet Picnic tasting menu.  Servings were bite size to encourage trying new tastes and avoid waste.  People could return for more of what they liked.  The menu explained local and ethical ingredients and who had supplied them.  They used the One Planet Picnic to reduce otehr waste too through 'Re-homing' of teddy bears and soft toys.

Introduced healthy breakfast for a short while.  It was very popular and the majority of people came to school early for breakfast.  The ECO Committee organised the whole project.

Because of our school garden, the children are becoming more confident about trying new things.   We have just finished Breakfast Week where each day all the children tried different breakfast ideas.  They tried a variety of breakfast cereals, plain yoghurt with blueberries and raisins, brose, home made and shop bought cereal bars, grapefruit, prunes and apricots.

Different classes take turns in preparing a morning snack for other classes that extends the range of fruits they are familiar with and knowledge of their preparation and serving options.