Schools vary greatly in their access to outdoor space from having quite large areas which could be used for food growing to having none at all…..

Our aim is for the Grow Your Own Grub project to be accessible for schools who have limited outdoor growing space as well as for schools who do have spare land for growing. We have also provided several indoor growing activities for schools without any outdoor space at all.

Why start a growing project?

There are many good reasons why a school may want to start a growing project such as Grow Your Own Grub:

•  It can provide fun and interesting learning opportunities which are linked to the National Curriculum in subjects such as science, history, geography, art, design and technology and maths.

•  It offers children contact with the natural world and learning about where their food comes from.

•  It can give children an insight into the seasonal nature of food and the variety of foods that can be grown locally.

•  It supports government healthy eating schemes and helps to reinforce healthy eating messages such as eating at least five fruit and vegetables a day, the importance of a varied diet and that home-grown vegetables are fresh, nutritious and cheap.

•  It links in with the importance of physical exercise for the well-being of children.

•  Children can have a practical opportunity to learn how important the environment is; even in inner-city areas.

•  The project is a very practical way of learning so it can allow less academic children to shine.

•  Through caring for plants and watching them grow children can learn important skills such as patience, caring respect and co-operation; which fit in with Citizenship in the National Curriculum.

•  The issues raised throughout the project link in with environmental issues from a local to global perspective. Children will learn that a lot of food is transported to our supermarkets over huge distances when we could have access to more local foods by growing them.

•  It's fun! Growing food in schools can be lots of fun and very creative…