Over the past year students have had great fun slowly growing our allotment at Allotment Club. Starting completely from scratch, the students have been involved in a wide variety of activities and have provided excellent thoughts and ideas on how to establish this area of our school to benefit even more in the future.

They have planted plenty of seeds, nurtured those that germinated, set up compost bins, created banana peel fertilisers and created bamboo stakes harvested from the garden. The students have also spent time in the Design and Technology department, cutting up wood and putting together planters.

They got to the chance to create and taste some yummy recipes using foraged or grown food including heading to the Food and Nutrition department to cook cherry and rhubarb crisp, salad with our own grown leaves and rose perfume from the library’s beautiful rose bushes. Students then took their tomato, chilli, pepper and basil plants home to harvest from through the summer.

In the autumn term they moved into their new location on the field and began to set out their new layout, which created plenty of hard work and in spring the planting began for a great summer term of growing again.

We would love plenty of new members as many of our fantastic members are heading into their exams which we wish them the best of luck with so will need some fresh hands to keep the fun rolling.

Special thanks to;

• The students involved in getting this club started and all their support and ideas as well as the fun we have had!
• Mr Becker and Mrs Gandham - reliable support and effort at allotment club sessions.
• Dr Ghoneim – for the kind donation of her parents’ greenhouse.
• Mr Blake and Mr Winford – The Design and Technology technicians for all their hard work making our greenhouse functional.
• Miss Flippance – for her help and support allowing us to create our planters from donated wood.
• Mrs Burdon – for her initial and continued supply of spare seeds to keep us growing.
• Miss Horley – for allowing us to use the food and nutrition department facilities to cook food from harvests.
• Mrs Holland and Mr Faulkner – for their amazing donations of plants, pots and equipment to help us get started.
• Mr Farmer – for allowing us a little slice of the field to start establishing an area for many more students to benefit from in the future.
• And many more staff who have offered time or equipment to get this club rolling.

If any students are interested in a varied weekly club then we would love to see you, Monday after school 3.15-4.15 p.m, meeting in P3 and heading out to the field depending on activities that week. If there any parents/guardians who feel they may have a skill or contact that would be able to help us in our journey we would love to hear from you as well. To a warm and sunny summer term of growing!

Mrs S Overton Teacher (ovr@gbhs.co.uk)