CORNWALL GARDENS TRUST

The Cornwall Gardens Trust’s Education programme has a few guiding principles:

• to encourage children to become more involved in gardening and related activities;
• to provide an innovative learning environment for pupils and a useful community resource;
• to get the children themselves to have a say about the kind of garden project they want, to help submit outline plans or designs, and to help create and maintain the garden.

The Trust assists by awarding small financial grants, and then providing volunteers who will visit each school regularly, offering advice and support on a range of garden-related activities, from plants and planting to wildlife and conservation.

Some schools have ‘challenging’ sites and few resources to spare. Both staff and children appreciate CGT efforts on their behalf, and it’s great to see such enthusiasm for the new garden areas.

Application forms and guidance notes for county primary schools are available here, and forms and notes for secondary and other education are available here.

To find out more, please contact Claire Hewlett via email to cgtschools@gmail.com.

The following schools were awarded grants from the Cornwall Gardens Trust during the academic year 2009/10:

Wadebridge Secondary School – to develop conservation garden and create herb and vegetable beds

Launceston College, Off Site Centre – to rescue a neglected area while encouraging students to develop transferable skills

Bodmin College – to encourage students with particular needs to become involved with the school garden by growing fruit and vegetables

Launceston College, Castle Area Resource Base – provide materials for raised beds and planters. The garden is used by special needs students and an after-school gardening club

Camlann House, nr Camelford – provide materials and tools to enable students to make better use of their exterior space while developing life skills

St John’s Catholic Primary School. Camborne – provide compost and tools to enable pupils to become actively involved in their garden

Sir James Smith’s Community School, Camelford – set up a vegetable garden to be incorporated within the Individual Needs curriculum

Awards made in the current academic year 2010/11:

Otterham Primary School – to create an external learning environment for students so integrating the garden into the school curriculum

Redruth School – encourage students to develop an understanding of sustainability and the natural environment

Only two awards have been made so far this year as the education team (Alison Barr, Hilary Bosher, Pamela Long and myself) have not been actively promoting the grants. We were hoping to be involved with two libraries, and associated schools, working to create a secret garden as part of the Passmore Edwards Big Read project and were trying to preserve some funds for that. Unfortunately that part of the Big Read project is no longer happening and so we are reverting to active promotion of the Trust’s grants.

Thanks to the generous support of the Tanner Trust we can continue our work with young people, aged 12-19, for the next two years. This will enable us to extend our work in the formal educational setting of schools and colleges but also help young people to get a taste for horticulture in less formal educational establishments such as youth centres or community groups.

If any of you know of any schools that could benefit from our help, do please let me know at cgtschools@gmail.com.

Claire Hewlett

In previous years the schools below have received awards from the Trust’s education programme.