Chowbent is a primary school based in Atherton. With the help from pupils, parents and other colleagues within Chowbent we are now running a number of different eco activities which give the children hands on experiences of the environment we live in and how different things are grown and produced.

Tuck shop.

We have recently started our own healthy tuck shop within school where the children can chose between a range of fruit and healthy snacks. We run our tuck shop in the morning for all children. This also links with our after school gardening club as we have encouraged the children to eat healthy and have therefore, allowed the children to have a go at growing some different vegetables and fruits in our school vegetable plots. Once these have grown will then be able to sell our home grown products at snack time for the children to try.

Tesco - Farm to Fork

Children have visited our local Tesco’s in Atherton where the children were able to take a sneaky peak behind the scenes of the busy store and to see how different food is stored. This was a very hands on experience for the children. Not only were they able to have a look at the vegetable and fruit department, the children also baked their own bread. They got to touch, feel and taste food and learnt about the journey their food takes from farm to fork.

Local businesses, a help in hand.

With no budget to set up our gardening club we wrote to local stores, shops and businesses for help and donations. We got lots of help from our local community and were provided with things such as soil, seeds, plant trays and pots from Morrison’s, vouchers from both Argos and B & M Bargains, poppy seeds from Abbey Funerals and 1 tonne of gravel and wooden pallets from Travis Perkins. We have also held non-uniform days where children were asked to bring a plant or gardening equipment to help with our Eco activities. This was a huge success.

Remembrance day

We attend and participate in the remembrance day walk in Atherton and lay a wreath at the cenotaph.

Wigan Borough

The children at school are very hands on and love to get involved with the new projects we are setting up. One day, whilst on the playground the children noticed that there was a lot more rubbish than usual and asked what we could do to help. This is how we formed our Litter picker group. Each playtime and lunch time a group of children go round with litter pickers and a black bin bag and pick up the rubbish that is left on the playground which is generated from snack time. However, rather than all the rubbish going into the same bin we got in touch with Wigan borough who provided our school with recycling bins. Each time the litter picking group had finished picking everything up they would then go and split their rubbish and put it into the appropriate bins. Our parents also got involved with our recycling scheme and two of our parents brought in two compost bins which are situated in our school garden for all of our fruit and garden waste.

Vegetable plots and jam making.

Following our trip to Tesco we set up vegetable plots at school where the after school gardening club were able to plant vegetables and fruits. (Food to fork) One of the vegetables we grew was broad beans. Once the broad beans were ready to pick we took them to our school kitchen and asked them to cook them for us so the children could have taste. We also grew our own strawberries. We had lots of different reactions from our tasting sessions but the children loved the experience of getting to try things that they had grown themselves. We also have a damson tree at school and therefore, I took it upon myself to make some damson jam for both the children and staff to enjoy.