17th January 2008

The children at St Benedict’s Infant School in Small Heath, Birmingham have been working hard to transform their concrete playground into a green haven, with the help of CSV Environment and three years of Action Earth grants.  The children, aged 3-7 years, have been using their green fingers to plant, weed, dig and in doing so, help to provide lots of small, safe and exciting gardens for all the school to use.

The first area created using the Action Earth money and the expertise of our school Gardening Club was the Sensory Garden. This garden was created using old tyres, lots of fresh herbs, hard work and imagination. This area is used by all the children and is fun and smelly!  The children also created a Texture Garden using a further £50 grant from CSV. This garden is full of plants that are safe, stimulating and exciting to touch.  In our school we design all of the gardens so that the children can use and touch them.  With our final grant we created an interactive, hands-on Music Trail, specifically for our Early Years children.  Using bottle tops, garden canes, old tins and a lot of imagination, the children help to create this wonderful music area, which is used regularly by our nursery children.

Our children and staff are passionate about the environment and are striving to achieve the Gold Eco Award (or Green Flag Award), along with a Sustainability Award. With the help of our Eco-Committee, Gardening Club, our very own Environmental Education Officer and parents, we hope to become a recognised school for environmental education.  The CSV Action Earth grants have helped us immensely in our continuing journey to improve our school environment and have helped to make the gardens more attractive and safe places to explore and learn.

Jodi Winter, Environmental Education Officer at St Benedict’s Infant School