Asked by Baroness Benjamin To ask Her Majesty’s Government
what steps they are taking to encourage school gardening, to ensure
that every child understands the environment and has an early
connection to nature. Baroness Benjamin (LD) My Lords, I beg
leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
In doing so, I declare an interest...Request free trial
Asked by
-
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking
to encourage school gardening, to ensure that every child
understands the environment and has an early connection to
nature.
-
(LD)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my
name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest
as RHS ambassador.
-
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, the science national curriculum requires that
children are taught about plants and can identify common
wild and garden plants. Guidance encourages schools to use
the local environment so that children can investigate
plants growing in their habitat. The government-backed 1
million trees for schools campaign gives millions of
children the chance to plant saplings in their school
grounds and communities, helping them to connect with
nature and make their school grounds and neighbourhoods
greener.
-
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Numerous
reports have shown that children as young as four suffer
from depression and anxiety. Research proves that gardening
is not only therapeutic for them but gives them a sense of
continuity, responsibility and an understanding of food
production. It can help them with subjects across the
curriculum, and even with a career in horticulture. Will
the Government work with the RHS school gardening campaign
to deliver gardening opportunities to schools across the
country and urge Ofsted to take such provision into account
when inspecting schools?
-
The noble Baroness is quite right about the therapeutic
benefits of gardening for children. I know that the RHS—I
pay tribute to the noble Baroness for her
ambassadorship—has a great campaign in schools for this.
That campaign now has more than 32,000 schools and
organisations engaged, including 68% of primaries and 78%
of secondaries, reaching 6 million children. As far as
Ofsted is concerned, we do not want to load it up with too
many specific, narrow requirements, but school inspectors
consider the breadth and depth of the school curriculum and
its impact on children. Inspectors will note where a
school’s use of outdoor space has a positive impact. They
also expect schools to provide rich and varied
extra-curricular activities, which may well include
gardening.
-
(Con)
My Lords, while warmly endorsing the RHS campaign, I would
make another point to my noble friend. Could he encourage
teachers, particularly career teachers, to look favourably
upon the many interesting educational developments that
come from studying horticulture at a much greater level?
There are many of these amazing careers open, but very
often we find that teachers downgrade them. That annoys me
enormously.
-
My noble friend is right that there are many good careers
in horticulture, landscape gardening, gardening et cetera.
We invested heavily in enhancing the careers provision in
schools through our Careers & Enterprise Company. I
know that this is something it has looked at, and that many
schools take this quite seriously. Indeed, at Cambridge
special school in Hammersmith pupils do a BTEC in
land-based studies using city farm space attached to the
school. This has been very beneficial to many graduates’
careers.
-
(Lab)
My Lords, research by the Royal Horticultural Society shows
that its Campaign for School Gardening can contribute to a
sustainable environment, which is important because
schoolchildren walk along roads where legal limits on air
pollution have already been breached in 16 areas just this
year. When will the air quality action plan to cut illegal
levels of nitrogen dioxide be published? The election is no
excuse, because Cabinet Office guidelines are absolutely
clear that purdah rules can be lifted where public health
is at risk.
-
The noble Baroness has wandered slightly off my brief, but
I will take this back. Of course, the Government are
developing a 25-year environment plan to achieve our
manifesto commitment to be the first generation to leave
the natural environment of England in a better state than
we found it.
-
The (CB)
My Lords, there is an amazing pool of ignorance among
children and young people as to where their food comes
from. I am not talking about vegetables in this case but
milk, eggs, cheese and meat. In most cities there are now
city farms, and farms are very willing to accommodate
children and young people to show them where their food
comes from, so would the Minister encourage this practice?
-
Most certainly. It is absolutely essential that children
are taken out of their environment. I know that there is
now Oasis’s city farm in Waterloo. There is also a very
good organisation called Jamie’s Farm which a number of
schools send children to so that they learn about farming,
crop growing and animals and vegetables.
-
(LD)
My Lords, I was in York a few days ago, where there was a
row of 20 new houses in dark brick, with dark windows,
fences and dark pavements. One of them had hanging baskets,
pots and window boxes. This completely lifted the
appearance of the whole thing. On the therapeutic aspects,
this needs real encouragement from not only the RHS but
also the National Trust. Would the Minister please also
turn the attention of the appropriate part of government to
the issue of allotments, which give many city people the
opportunity to go out and do some gardening?
-
I entirely agree with the noble Lord’s comment about the
therapeutic effect—both the British Medical Council and
Natural England commented on this—particularly for children
with disadvantages of some kind. I have seen this for
myself in alternative provision schools and special
schools. I will certainly pass on his comments about
allotments.
-
(Lab)
Given the educational value of these gardens, now that the
Minister has had a windfall of time landing in his diary
over the next few weeks, will he find time to dig through
the weeds of the school funding formula to see whether head
teachers will have enough resources for school gardens?
Then perhaps the seeds of doubt will sprout about whether
the line he is about to give us about the school funding
formula is wearing a little thin.
-
I am most impressed with the noble Lord’s ability to weave
into this Question something which might appear to be so
off-piste, but he will know, from his experience of having
done my job, that when all the MPs disappear to try to get
re-elected it is the Lords Minister who does all the work.
However, I will attempt to come back to him with a more
fulsome answer to his question.
-
(Con)
My Lords, there is a great deal of public awareness about
the developmental pressure on playing fields, but I do not
think there is any about growing space. Gardening takes
room—less room than sport—but it is very important. How is
the Minister informed of those pressures and how is he
protecting those resources?
-
The noble Lord makes a very good point. We are very keen to
protect school land and school playing field land. There is
a legal requirement on anyone holding public land which has
been used for a maintained school or academy in the last
eight years—or 10 years in the case of some playing field
land—to seek consent from the Secretary of State. This will
include land used not just for playing fields but for
horticultural purposes.
-
(CB)
My Lords, the Ashden charity, of which my daughter-in-law
is the chairman, gives awards for sustainable energy across
the world, including in England. It gave an award to a
primary school which dug up a small amount of the
playground and planted vegetables. Does the Minister think
that this ought to be encouraged?
|
