Summer 2011

Summer Newsletter

We have been very busy in the Garden Club this term working in the garden and winning competitions!

The Blue Peter gardener visits Garnetbank by Thomas

Blue Peter gardener Chris Collins came to our school after we won the Sensory garden contest. Everyone in the Gardening Club came to help build a Bug Hotel, scarecrow and planted a variety of seeds and plants.

P7 and P6 both got the chance to build the scarecrow. The P6’s got to put the Gardening Club t shirt and a foam football as the head, the P7’s put the straw in and a bucket for the hat.
At the end of the day everyone got a picture with Chris Collins and a box with gardening advice.

Garden Club Open Day by Sonny.

I was standing at the gate with Thomas and inviting parents and children into the garden. I gave a couple of tours with Eli and some on my own too. My main job though was to write down the guesses for out “Guess the scarecrow’s name” competition and gather in the money.

It was a beautiful day and we all had fun, and there were some funny scarecrow guesses like, Mr Strawbelly, Stinky Pete, and Grandpa Joe.

Ps. The scarecrow’s name was Mr Scarecrow!

Reaching Level 5 of RHS Gardening for Schools Camapign

Also at the Open day we were finally able to receive our plaque from the RHS for reaching Level 5 of their Gardening for Schools Campaign. This is the top level and considering we are an inner city school with no proper garden this is a big achievement for us. Unfortunately the RHS representative from Glasgow Botanic Gardens was unable to attend the ceremony so Miss Douglas our Primary 1 teacher stepped in at the last minute and even managed to make a hat for the occasion. Royal wedding watchers may recognise it as a copy of the hat Princess Beatrice wore to William and Kate’s wedding. Some of last years garden club who have now gone onto high school were able to come back for the ceremony which was nice as they had done a lot of the work to help us achieve this level.

Appetite for Action prize!

We have been taking part in Appetite for Action’s Get Growing Challenge. We have been writing about things that the garden club have been doing and agreed to do at least five things to improve and promote gardening within the school and local community.

http://schools.appetiteforaction.org.uk/hlittle1/?actclub=1

We then submitted our entry on 10th June to take part in their nationwide competition. They picked a winner from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England and then an overall winning school who would receive a cheque for £1500. We hoped we might be lucky enough to be the winner in Scotland but were very excited to learn that we were the overall winner in the United Kingdom! We got the phone call to say that we had won on the day of the Primary 7’s Leavers Assembly so that was a nice way for the Primary 7’s in the Garden Club to leave school.

The very nice ladies from Appetite for Action came all the way to Glasgow to present us with out cheque in the last week of term. It was a lovely sunny day and we were very excited about getting our cheque.