Transition Town Tooting

Tag: Gatton School

  • Update 2: Gatton School Garden Sessions

    This week’s garden sessions with Gatton School saw two very different events.  60 Year 1 children went on a “Bear Hunt” set out by their teachers around the site, while a more regular group of 15 Year 6 children helped clear up autumn leaves, tidy up some beds for compost and continued with the Big Build rain water harvester project.  The eight upright posts for the Big Build structure have now been set in concrete, some of it mixed by the students.  Thanks to all this week’s volunteers who helped out with these activities.

    A bear is discovered
    Concrete mixing and post setting

  • Update 1: the Big Build with Gatton School in the Community Garden

    One of the outdoor learning projects we are carrying out with Gatton School’s Year Six class is helping to build our combined rainwater catchment, shelter, suntrap, & garden bower in the Community Garden, between now and Christmas.
    Every week we’ll make progress, and share it here.
    Last week we cleared the site and dug the post holes.
    Yesterday the children raised the first upright roof support.

     
    The children mixed cement and gravel to make concrete – and mixed it again and again in several piles.
    Cement has a high carbon footprint: we are using as little as we can. Almost all the timber we need is recycled from materials found on site. We’ll be buying new fixings, and balancing that with mixing the concrete by hand – and saving water in the future.

    Many hands support the post
    Handprint in the concrete

    Taking turns with other garden activities, many hands held the timber upright , concrete was rammed in around the post, and handprints were added as a finishing touch.




    The challenge fitted well into the hour’s session and left a great feeling of achievement – I heard a girl say ‘That was brilliant’ to her friend, and one of the teachers say ‘I wish we’d done this when I was at school’.

    Sketch of how it will look

    More news next week – and do get in contact by email if you would like any more information.   

  • Outdoor Learning with Gatton School in the Community Garden in Nov & Dec 2013

    Gatton School, located near Tooting Broadway, have been coming to the Community Garden every week since March as part of their Outdoor Learning programme. At the moment we have Year One and Year Six staff and children taking part, alongside TTT volunteers.
    Between now and the end of term in December, we are running two projects: the Big Build, and Bug Hotels (we seem to be in a construction frame of mind, good for these winter weeks).

    The plan takes shape


    The Big Build is a set of weekly steps that will construct a rain-water harvesting roof (and that will also provide shelter for activities in 2014…so it is win-win!). TTT’s resident civil engineer, Richard, has developed the steps. As in all projects success depends on having a good plan (and knowing when you need to modify it) and people who want it to succeed (TTT volunteers and the children). Oh…and some decent weather. The school is linking the project with learning objectives for the children, and there’ll be a great sense of practical achievement all round when it’s all done.

    And like all projects the pre-work is important. First we have to clear the site..here is a report on yesterday’s first step:


    “This week we have started our rainwater catchment project with year 6 of Gatton School. The project, born from the necessity at the garden for stored rainwater has become a 7 week project with the children. Our aim is to teach the kids about making foundations, setting timbers straight in our wobbly garden, re-using timber and sheet material, learning about capturing rainwater – and creating a shelter, within which we shall celebrate our combined efforts in their last week of term.
    Compost looking for a heap

    However, this week was not as glamorous as all that. We cleared the remainder of the compost area, cut back the long grass around the build, sorted and stacked the useful on site materials and broke down the remainder of the black hoarding that used to run across the width of the site. Foundations next…what fun!”



    The second project is Bug Hotels. This project will use recycled materials to provide shelter for the beneficial insects and other creatures that live in the Garden. In fact with dozens of children involved, the Community Garden’s mini-beasts are going to be very well housed. Again, this project can link with activities in school, and useful preparation can be done at school if we are rained off.

    Palatial overwintering site

    Small and simple accommodation










    We know that above all these projects are about offering two valuable experiences: enjoying time oudoors, and learning new things in a creative way, together. Even if project plans get stretched, it’s great to have the opportunity- plus cooperation between the school and TTT -so we can all experiment. We’ll let you know how we progress!

  • ‘After the Foodival’ open meeting 15th October

    TTT Open Meeting Tuesday 15th October – looking forward at TTT and local activities to build on the energy of the Foodival

    Please come along: we have a regular TTT meeting in the upstairs room at The Selkirk in Selkirk Road, SW17 0ES on Tuesday at 7pm. All are welcome. We’ll aim to tap in to the energy raised by, and have a bit of a debrief from, the Foodival – and hear about ongoing opportunities to get involved with existing projects.

    Maybe you have a project idea you’d like to develop with others?  
    If so why not come along and share with the group?

    This meeting will have a structured section as well as time to chat. 
    Please contact us if you are interested in presenting at this meeting: email us here
    Our latest TTT mail out to subscribers was sent on the 11th October: click here to read a copy.
    No TTT post is complete without a photo: so here are 2 from yesterdays’ plant printing session for families at Gatton School’s Big Draw and Cultural Day – thanks for asking us!

    Meanwhile TTT was also at yesterday’s St George’s Hospital Community Open Day, where we dished out a lot of Community Garden seeds and had some good conversations. 
    And how about the medical students dance society?  They should have been on the stage at Foodival – maybe next year, they were great!

  • Outdoor Learning in the Tooting Community Garden

    We’re learning with Gatton School
    We are really delighted to be hosting an exciting new programme of visits by children and staff from Gatton School in Tooting to our Community Garden near Tooting Common.
    This project has developed quickly since the first meetings in February: there is a lot of goodwill on all sides, and everyone is keen for it to work and to see how it develops.

    Before the Spring holidays, we completed the first four weeks of visits.

    Measuring around the big tree


    What’s the purpose?
    The School is keen to provide weekly experiences of outdoor learning to children – time outside, in nature, where many different projects can be planned and tried out – all influenced by the weather and the season.

    

    Inspecting a woodlouse

    There will be space in the programme for reflecting, observing, listening and appreciating time in the garden. 







    

    Digging the new plot

    Experience outdoors can link to many aspects of the School’s curriculum and community, and be enhanced by activities in School: displays, maps, assemblies, writing, art, growing seedlings to transplant back to the garden. Maybe there will be a forest of sunflowers?

    Some of the activities will explore growing food and flowers, or looking at the garden’s special landscape and developing some new features – such as making a circle of tree-stump seats for storytelling, tucked away in a quiet corner. The play furniture will be sanded and painted.

     Who is taking part?
    Each week, a quarter of the Reception age children come for an hour, and a quarter of Year Six comes for a separate hour. Others from the same year groups come in the following weeks, and then after four weeks the first groups come again, to do new things and see what has changed.

    School staff accompany the children so they can be fully supported in small groups. Members of our voluntary Community Garden group are there as well to help with planned (and maybe some surprise) activities.

    What is it? A disk of ice from the water butt

    Three weeks later: getting ready to plant potatoes

    The next months
    We’re planning to keep this weekly rotation of children going through to July. The project can have a display at the BATCA fun day held at Gatton School on June 8thand we will report monthly here on this blog. Next year we all hope we can start again in September with new school year groups.

    And: the Community Garden also continues to be open regularly for anyone who wants to come along and join in our activities each Sunday from 11:00 to 1:00, at 5 North Drive.

    Please email transitiontowntooting@gmail.comfor info: all welcome!