Schools

Getting children to think about and appreciate local orchards is a key part of helping to protect and restore them. One of the best ways of doing this is through work with schools. Whether planting an orchard from scratch or ‘adopting’ a local orchard to restore, this provides children with hands-on experience of managing their environment, and even gives them the opportunity to grow and eat their own fruit! Orchards also have a huge amount potential as a resource for cross-curricula teaching from science to art, music, local history and culture.

The involvement of schools in Clyde Valley orchard initiatives is only just beginning. A number of these activities, and others of relevance to local orchards, are outlined below.

Glasgow school visit

The children, from Oakgrove Primary School in St George’s Cross, Glasgow came to find out our local orchards can produce. They set to work picking apples, including Bramleys - a great variety for cooking - and did a little on-site cookery. After the fun of learning where fruit comes from and hearing all about the wildlife in the orchards, the children tucked into their packed lunches, finishing off with stewed apples and cream that they had cooked and prepared themselves.

The children took many of the apples they had picked back with them to Glasgow, to sell and raise money for new fruit trees, which will be planted in schools, parks and open spaces across the city. These will add to over 500 trees that have been planted to date in areas including Possil, Easterhouse, Drumchapel and Kings Park, as part of the Children’s Garden Project .

[September 2007, funded by Scottish Natural Heritage and South Lanarkshire Rural Partnership LEADER+ Programme]

Woodland Classroom

For a few hours each week, a class of children from Underbank Primary School, in the Clyde Valley, put on their boots and went down to the local woodland to work on projects. Working in small groups, they explored the woodland through music, maths, art and science. They then gave a presentation of their work at the school to a group of invited parents and other guests. Using videos and tape recordings, graphs, stories and artwork, the children described their projects and what they had achieved. A Woodland Classroom booklet was produced as a resource guide for teaching and learning.

Although the project focused on woodlands, old orchards would also be excellent sites for these activities.

[June 2005, produced as part of the Clyde Valley LIFE Project with funds from Scottish Natural Heritage & the European LIFE Nature Programme ]

Further Information

• ‘School Orchards’ is one of the Orchard Advice Leaflets (No. 23) produced by Common Ground . It includes lots of good ideas for school orchard activities.
• Setting up and running a school garden A useful publication written for children around the word (FAO).
• Fact Sheets on species (9-14 yr. olds) A series of fact sheets suitable for use by 9-14 year olds and but also a source of information for teachers. They include descriptions of important Scottish native species and include useful advice about ‘finding out more’ and ‘getting involved’.
• The Tree Trunk A source of information on a wide range of books, posters, videos, etc on trees, woodlands and wildlfe, to support the delivery of specific areas of the Early Years, 5-14, Standard Grade and National Qualifications curricula.