Georgetown Primary School
A Celebration of Children’s Rights
Our garden is a celebration of Children’s Rights and Global Goals.
We chose to celebrate Children’s Rights because it is our right to learn about our entitlement and we are proud to share our knowledge with others. Our garden shows ways in which we can respect our environment by reducing, reusing and recycling. By making our own compost, reducing water usage, planting for pollinators and growing our own vegetables we are showing the school and the community ways to respect the environment.
Compost trousers
Rainwater collection system
Tasty herbs
We researched and chose flowering plants such as Zinnia, Sunflowers, Marigold and Lavender that are packed with pollen and nectar to encourage all sorts of pollinators including bees and butterflies into our garden. We grew most of these from seed and are proud of how well they’ve grown.
We decided we would like to grow vegetables that can be used in our school meals to give an opportunity to grown and eat our own food. We planted mixed and baby leaf lettuce varieties from seed with great success, as well as parsley and basil which we hope will be used in soups and sauces. Our removable, recycled bottle, mini greenhouse is being used to grow tomato plants that can also be used in school salads. We’ve included peas in our garden because they are such a favourite for snacking on and provide real excitement when popping open the pods. All compost used has been peat free and we hope our homemade ‘trouser compost’ will be ready for repotting our tomato plants. We haven’t had any issue with anything eating our plants yet but have planted marigolds alongside our lettuce as a natural way to combat this.
We were lucky to have a local joiner help provide materials and labour for our build. The main frame is made from wooden pallets, whisky barrel, multiwall shower panel and Perspex. These are all previously used materials that could have gone to landfill. The guttering pipe and watering can to collect rain water are both second hand and donated to the school. The mini greenhouse is made from recycled plastic bottles and willow collected from the willow in the school grounds. Our hanging compost trousers are made from old jeans filled with layers of compostable materials. We think they provide a comical look to our garden! All of our planters come from our school supply and have been upcycled with beautifully designed milk bottle top bees and ladybirds and milk bottle butterflies. Our information chalk boards are recycled from broken chalk boards in the school and are removable so we can change the information on them.
We have learned a lot on our journey to create our pocket garden. Our understanding of why reducing, reusing and recycling, planting for pollinators and growing our own vegetables has a positive impact on our environment has increased greatly. Our knowledge about Children’s Rights and Global Goals is greater meaning we can speak more confidently about them. We’ve learned really practical skills such as how to make our own compost and also planting and tending to plants. A really lovely thing we’ve noticed about gardening in general is what a great social activity it is. Working together to choose, plant, water and take care of our plants is such an enjoyable experience. The anticipation of waiting for plants to sprout through the soil or for the first flower to appear is so interactive and engaging. We’ve found that the whole school is interested in what we’re doing and it promotes great conversations about the environment.
A local joiner provided materials, helped the children fix it all together and secure our build to the ground. We were involved in working alongside the joiner to develop skills and learn how to build safely. We had hoped more of our plants grown from seed would be flowering to provide colour to our garden before the deadline, but unfortunately they weren’t, so we put out a flowering plant and compost plea to the school community and very gratefully received some donations. Our plants grown from seed are still included in our pocket garden and we can’t wait to see them all flower.
When the competition is finished our plan is to keep the pocket garden in position in our garden area. We would like to use it year after year to teach others about how to respect the environment and grow their own fruit and vegetables. We’re sure there will be many other fabulous ideas we can incorporate into it.
We would like to highlight all of the ways we have reduced, reused and recycled as a way of respecting the environment. Hanging compost trousers, mini greenhouse and rain-water collection system are all simple and effective ways of doing this that others could use at home or in school.
Creating the garden – from design to reality
