On the last day of the summer term we went out to St Katherine’s school in Pill to visit an incredible project that is run by the teacher who is the head of the team that teaches Hospitality in the school.
St Katherines’s is a secondary school with around 1000 children and they are one of the very few holders of a gold Food For Life award from the soil association. On visiting it is obvious why as the school grounds are full of growing beds that were full of food. There were typical allotment type plots, an area of orchard and a fully functioning, if small, forest garden space that was covered in soft fruit when we visited.
So, you might ask, what happens to this food? Next door to the school is The Leaf, the school’s very own restaurant, which opens to the local community once a week and which bases it’s menus on what is available rom the garden on that day. The students taking Hospitality get to learn what cooking and serving in a real restaurant is like, the community has a central place to meet and share food together, and the produce from the garden gets used. Perfect.
In November we will be supporting St Katherine’s in its yearly Food Festival-a week during which all lessons are aimed to be taught with food as the central topic. This is something we would like to help other schools to roll out too, to help open the food discussion with young people and see how they feel their lives are touched by food

St Katherine’s Forest Garden

One of the allotment type gardens