Growing success of garden in schools

Lifestyle –  Judy Murphy meets Kay Synott, the woman who has pioneered gardens as a place of learning

We love it because it gets us out of work,” say the children from third class in St Annin’s National School at Roscahill as they troop out happily to attend to their school garden.

A mix of wild flowers, herbs, fruit bushes and vegetables, the garden is surrounded on one side by timber fencing, on the other by a variety of hedgerows which also act as a safety barrier against the busy main road between Galway and Oughterard.

The children are delighted that this project gets them out of the classroom and out of formal education. But as Kay Synott, the woman behind Living Garden explains, a school garden is the perfect vehicle for children to learn much that is on the formal curriculum – mathematics, history, spelling and science just for starters. Dealing with success and failure is also part of gardening, and a hugely important skill for children to learn, she adds.

Rosscahill resident Kay runs gardening courses for schools across Galway, and says it can help with everything from educational needs to behavioural issues. This no-nonsense woman, who trained in the hospitality business and never wanted to be a teacher, has been doing that informally for the past 10 years, both at primary, secondary and, more recently, adult level.

Living Gardens began when her two oldest children were pupils in St Annin’s Primary School in Roscahill. The school had initially approached her about planting a hedge to tackle the problem of a low wall by the main road.

“I said, ‘why not go further and make a garden’,” she recalls.

She drew up a design for a three-year plan and the parents’ committee and teachers began various fundraising drives, from puppet shows to cake sales. She had thought it would take three years to raise the funds, but it only took two. The garden in the 250-pupil school took off, with ongoing support from staff and parents, and it’s still going strong.

It was a learning curve for Kay as well as for the pupils and teachers, she recalls with a laugh.

“There was very little school gardening done at the time, now there’s more of it. So we were learning on the ground. I discovered that bringing out a class of 30 children with just one teacher is not a good idea.

For school projects, tasks have to be simple, the gardens have to be simple and they need to be low maintenance, explains Kay.  Since then, she has developed a method that works for all classes, from infants up to sixth, which she implements with the support of teachers.

Following the success of the St Annin’s garden, Kay was approached by city-based community activist Brendan Smith to get involved in a school in Galway City and, after that, requests kept coming.

Five years ago she got funding under the State-run Heritage in Schools Scheme, which was a big bonus.

That’s because there is no specific funding for gardening in school budgets, although the Department of Education pays lip service to its importance in schools. So, unless parents fundraised, or people applied for Local Agenda 21 environmental funding, the money wasn’t there. This Heritage Scheme funds a number of visits from Kay to help students develop and maintain a garden. She also does courses in biodiversity, composting, native trees, pond development and environmental education generally, she says.

When it comes to developing a garden, Kay gets children involved from the off. A school that invites her in will generally have an idea where the garden should go, and she will discuss this with the children and teachers, so that they have a sense of ownership from the beginning.

The garden has to be measured out – which involves maths – and she’ll show them how to do soil samples – science.

Then they’ll explore what fruit and vegetables they want to produce, and she’ll work to fulfil those wishes as much as possible.

Each class gets a particular vegetable to grow, because Kay has learned that’s the most effective way of working.

For Junior Infants, it’s normally runner beans – the seeds are big, they grow quickly and have big flowers, and she can tell them the story of Jack and the Beanstalk to keep them interested.

Senior Infants usually get peas, again because of big seeds and they are easy and quick to grow.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.