A FOOD education programme by The Prince’s Foundation has returned for a second year after success in promoting healthy lifestyle choices and outdoor learning among primary school pupils.
Growing Together, Cooking Together focuses on skills in growing vegetables, as well as sustainable gardening, encouraging wildlife and protecting soil.
Twenty-three pupils aged 8-10 at Muirkirk Primary School are enrolled on the programme, working with education tutors from The Prince’s Foundation to expand their knowledge of food and to develop a vegetable garden in school grounds that will, in time, be utilised by the whole school and the wider Muirkirk community.
Class teacher Christopher Jackson said: “We have been eager to create a community garden for a while but needed assistance and expertise to get us started.
“More than this however, what really made us want to engage was the lasting effects of the project and the skills the pupils gain.
“Food and farm education is one of the key areas of learning where we can impart the knowledge and skills pupils will need to help them better care for the Earth.
“We hope that the community garden is a space the community care for all year around and provides a space where they can engage with the school in a friendly and relaxed manner.
“We are also hopeful that the knowledge of our pupils flowers just like their produce and they are then able to pass the torch onto the younger pupils.”
In the programme’s launch year, P7 children at Netherthird and Greenmill schools were armed with skills in growing vegetables before using them to prepare meals from scratch.
Workshops at Dumfries House included bread-baking and front-of-house service at the Woodlands training restaurant and, at Valentin’s Education Farm, learning about the provenance of food and animal welfare.
Muirkirk pupils prepared the ground last week for their vegetable garden alongside education manager Arianne Knowles and constructed raised beds with the help of Dumfries House carpenter Andrew Milton.
All photos are of Muirkik kids taking part in The Prince’s Foundation programme in 2019 and were taken by Iain Brown.
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