Category Archives: food sustainability
Grow and Sell Kits at St Peter’s Primary School
After supporting a local school via Food for Thought Programme, Waitrose donated a Grow & Sell Kit to St Peter’s Primary School.
Grow & Sell kit – children get all they need to grow vegetables and Waitrose committed to buy the vegetables from them.
Lochgilphead Primary 7’s – International Schools Meals Day
The 33 P7s in Ms Craven’s class have been planting chickpeas and learning about the food and culture of Cyprus.
The lovely dinner ladies decorated the canteen and made tasting pots of hummus and moussaka. The kids all took home their planted chickpeas and a recipe card for hummus (minus the tahini ingredient as difficult to buy in Lochgilphead!).
International School Meals Day
Something Fishy!
PM Packaging (Parkers Packaging) event on 10th February @ St Mary’s Primary School for P6 – 38 children in two sessions
AM Packaging (Parkers Packaging) event on 10th February @ Holy Cross Primary School for P2 – 50 children in two sessions
SeaFood Event arranged by Marie Clare – with support from Waitrose and FishistheDish – @St Thomas of Aquin’s covering St Thomas of Aquin’s, Holy Cross, St Marys, St Marks, St Peters Primary. Children tasted different types of fish, learned more about the benefits of eating fish, saw fresh crabs and other seafood and saw a live cookery demonstration.
Andover Primary
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
EVENTS AT ANDOVER
Andover Primary was successful in applying for a bid from Food for Thought in September 2013. This meant we had a grant of £5000 to support the development of food education and an understanding of the provenance of local food as well as developing additional links with the community.
A link was developed with a Nutritionist at Robert Gordon’s University and several community events were planned at which pupils, mainly those attending the School Cooking Club, could showcase their skills.
The first event was a Harvest Meal in October. This was sourced, with support from Brechin Community Council, from many local producers. The menu was selected following a competition for Scottish dishes organised within the Brechin cluster. The winning dishes were prepared by the children in school.
Prior to the meal every child in Andover (a big school) visited a local producer and did follow up activities. This was funded through the project and organised with the help of Carol Littlewood from RHET. Visits included a dairy farm, smoking house, strawberry farm, poultry farm, an arable farm as well as the co-operative farm in Blairgowrie.
Over one hundred guests attended the supper.
This month a Scottish Event is being hosted. Not only will guests enjoy a three course Scottish meal, but entertainment including music and poetry.
All pupils now have a much greater understanding of where our food is grown and its journey. The Cooking Club pupils in particular have a very good knowledge, understanding and practical experience of basic cooking skills including using a knife correctly, the importance of a varied diet, including fruit, eating together, manners and basic food hygiene.
Many of the Health and wellbeing outcomes have been achieved and everyone has had a lot of fun and enjoyment.
Liz Howson
Andover Primary School
Lochgilphead Joint Campus – Growing Buddies
St Bride’s and Bothwell Primary shared garden
Have a look at the blog from St Bride’s and Bothwell Primaries who are worked on a shared garden project. Lots of inspiring work resulting in St Brides earning their
The school achieved their third Eco flag yesterday with involvement from the Eco/FFT team. The assessor commented on how merging the two groups into one group was a great idea and how they compliment each other so well as their work overlaps in so many ways. Their Food for Thought involvement helped their Eco group its third flag.
Dingwall Diggers
Dingwall Diggers welcomed visitors from Knockfarrel Produce and The Storehouse.
Jo Hunt from Knockfarrel Produce– delivered a talk about supporting local produce and provide local ingredients such as garlic, 
potatoes (3 different types) and chard. (http://www.knockfarrel.com/index.asp)
Quintin from The Storehouse – worked with Dingwall Academy to agree on ingredients which will be based on the vegetables and herbs that the school will plant in the garden. (http://www.thestorehouseathome.com/index.php)
Dingwall Digggers thank their visitors;
Dear Quintin, Shaun and Jo,
Thank you so much for your fabulous visit today – all your hard work and wonderful produce gave the DiGGers a memorable and educational experience.
You might like to see some of the photos on our blog: www.dingwalldiggers.blogspot.com
I look forward to more activities in future; it is so important that our youngsters have the opportunity to engage with the natural world and food growing & cooking – understanding how and why it will taste so much better when fresh and local as well as learning the importance of reduced environmental impact. Just experiencing good food and the interest of preparing it gives them a chance of a better diet and healthier life.
Thanks again,
Susan Swallow
From: Vivian Maeda <VivianMaeda@sbcscot.com>
Sent: 12 November 2013 16:39
To: quintin@thestorehouseathome.com; Susan Swallow; info@Knockfarrel.com
Cc: info@thestorehouseathome.com; Vivian Maeda
Subject: Food for Thought – January 2014 date tbc
Dear Quintin and Jo,
Thank you for your support to the Food for Thought Programme.
The project is funded and supported by Education Scotland – see link: http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/learningteachingandassessment/curriculumareas/healthandwellbeing/supportmaterials/foodforthoughteducationfund/aims.asp
Helping the school (http://www.dingwallacademy.com/ ) with the project will better prepare our children to the future:
You have agree to support in:
Jo Hunt – quick talk about supporting local produce and provide local ingredients such as garlic, potatoes (3 different types) and chard. (http://www.knockfarrel.com/index.asp)
Quintin – liaise with school and agree on the final list of ingredients which will be based on the vegetables and herbs that the school will plant in the garden. If you have other ideas, please speak with Susan about it, I am sure she is open to suggestions. (http://www.thestorehouseathome.com/index.php)
Tulliallan Sustainability Event
On Friday 8th November 2013, the Primary 7 class from Tulliallan Primary hosted a Sustainability Event to which they invited all classes and also parents and carers.
The event was an opportunity for the children to share their learning about Climate Change and sustainability. Prior to the event, Primary 7 spent lots of time in class learning about the causes and impact of climate change. They also worked with Primary 5 to learn more about Food Miles, the impact these have on the environment and about local, in-season produce. This work was then developed further with P7 carrying out Maths activities to investigate the food miles of various recipes, sharing their learning with Primary 3 and then buddying up with Primary 3 to bake using local produce.
The end result was a Café area that served the food created by P3 and P7 and a trade show in the Primary 7 classroom to highlight the benefits of reusing food packaging waste.
Watch our movie, Review of Learning, to find out more and to hear what we learned from this event!
Growing Global Food Citizens
A 5-day exploration of sustainable food in Scotland – Click here to see the fantastic programme the cluster will experience – growingglobalfoodcitizens
Growing Global Food Citizens is a 5-day continuing professional development course for teachers.
Edinburgh City Council and Eco-Schools Scotland, together with Whitmuir Organics and six Edinburgh primary schools – Craigour Park, Carrick Knowe, St John’s, Davidson Mains, Gracemount and Murrayburn – successfully submitted a collaborative bid to the Food for Thought Education Fund 2013-14.
The Food for Thought funding award enables:
• Eco-Schools Scotland to facilitate the development of a professional learning community to share good practice and collaborative learning.
• Whitmuir Organics, a working organic farm with on-site butchery, kitchen, restaurant and shop, to design, write and deliver a 5-day course to 12 teachers (2 from each school) to increase their knowledge and confidence in identifying and understanding sustainable food systems.
• Each of the 6 schools to undertake practical projects in their own schools.
The first 5-day course is scheduled to run on: 12 November and 3 December 2013, 14 January, 11 February and 18 March 2014.
Whitmuir Organics
EH46 7BB
www.whitmuirtheorganicplace.co.uk
01968 661908
info@whitmuirtheorganicplace.co.uk
