We love to hear about what our schools are up to and see photos of their gardening activities. Tell us about what you grew, how you grew it, what you learnt, and we will upload it to the website.
You can send us your news stories in PDF format and your photos in jpg format.
The school received a YGT Schools Grounds Development Award in 2026 to create a wildlife and flower garden. The project is being led by the school's Planet Protectors Club and will also include a plaque to celebrate Sir David Attenborough's 100th birthday. This is the latest update from the school -
'The shed and water butt construction are now scheduled for the summer holidays, so everything will be ready for the children's return in September. This does mean our biodiversity project will officially roll over into 2027, but we are making fantastic use of the time in between.
In fact, we are absolutely thrilled to share that we are partnering with the York University Sustainability Clinic for a project starting this autumn! This is a wonderful opportunity for our Eco Committee children. Together, they will be mapping our grounds, identifying grey areas that need work, and getting expert advice on the best planting for our specific soil and locality. Our ultimate goal is to create thriving green corridors with the perfect biodiversity to welcome more local wildlife.
We also want to say a massive thank you for the wonderful butterfly barn! Our EYFS children have been having the best time observing and hatching butterfly cocoons. They were absolutely delighted with this gift, which we plan to place in our willows area right near the planned release site.
It has completely inspired us to curate a dedicated climate and eco section in our library with well-chosen titles, which we are putting together with the help of the Little Apple Bookshop. We are actually using funds generated from our school clothing bank to support this, which feels very fitting!
We truly appreciate our collaboration with you and the YGT team. Thank you for everything!'
We had a fantastic day at Lotherton Hall for the AGM, and the event was a resounding success.
We are delighted to announce that Ben Palmer’s inspiring presentation prompted our members to donate a generous £420 to the Schools Group. Thank you to everyone who contributed; the funds will be put to excellent use!
And thank you to everyone involved in organising the day and all who attended.
Wykebeck school received a YGT Schools Grounds Development Award in April 2025, to add a polytunnel for growing from seed, and to extend the school's core values of kindness and respect, to the environment.
We received this update from the school - 'we have managed to grow some wonderful flowers, strawberries (just started flowering) and tomatoes from seeds...I still have some money to purchase raised beds. We have been successful in being awarded Grow for Schools next year and I have further plans to extend the garden. So thank you, your support has started something quite amazing for our school. I am excited for what the next year brings. We also have a working wormery!!!' The wormery was also gifted to the school by YGT.
St Joseph's Catholic Primary, Keighley received a YGT Schools Grounds Development Award 2025, to create a vibrant Living Wall in a particularly grey, uninspiring outdoor walkway in their school. The following photos and video show just how they did this!'
Pending video upload!
The YGT for Schools Grounds Development Award for 2024, granted Priory Primary School the sum of £300, to be used to create a Key Stage Two garden.
We had an overgrown, untidy Key Stage 2 garden which was originally a cut flower garden but was in need of repair. The raised beds were starting to rot and the bark was thin on the ground.
We aimed to have new refurbished raised beds so the children can go outside and enjoy nature, benefit from being hands on in the garden, move more, enjoy the fresh air, learn where food comes from and develop gross and fine motor skills. They will also learn social skills; taking turns, sharing and team work whilst in the garden.
We managed to recruit a small band of enthusiastic volunteers who will help maintain the garden and we also have a weekly children’s gardening club who have been actively involved with growing seeds, planting plants, watering, weeding etc. In addition to this each class in Key Stage two will have sessions in the garden during school time, although this has been limited this year due to volume of rain we have had this year. In fact the whole process took longer than expected due to the bad weather but we are very happy that the project is more than underway; we have some seeds that will be ready for early next year.
We had initially planned on using some of the funds to buy scaffold boards for the raised beds but came across a seller on social media who sold pallet collars at a considerably lower price. This meant we could double the amount of beds we had originally planned. We ordered weed suppressant and bark for the surrounding area to make the area look better and keep the weeds down and sowed seeds to fill the beds. The weather beat us on several occasions but we now have an amazing space for the children to enjoy the outdoors and engage all of the skills mentioned above. The school match funded the grant so we were also able to buy compost as well as flower and vegetable seeds for the children to cultivate.
'Yes, our water butt and 2 raised beds are complete.
I've attached some photos for you. Sorry, not much growing in the beds at the moment, so the children "planted" some artificial flowers for me today! They also love digging in the soil and playing with their dumper trucks.'
'Thanks for your continued interest in our gardening club project. The funding we received has been put to good use so far. We have been able to purchase compost, raised beds and some wood chippings all of which have helped transform our small allotment area, so it is easy for the children to manage. We have negotiated reduced costs from suppliers which has helped our funding go a bit further. The gardening club team have cleared the area of weeds and are adopting a "no dig" approach to the area. We have recycled cardboard from deliveries to school and used this as a base for our "no dig" approach and plan to use pallets from deliveries to create a bug hotel. The gardening club have been busy this week distributing the wood chippings throughout the area. Staff have donated planters and other bits and pieces which were destined for landfill. Children have planted beans, squash, tomatoes, soft fruit and salad - they've been able to observe nature, as spiderlings hatched on one of the plants. We also have an area of the garden where a plum tree was planted in memory of a former pupil - it's all part of learning about the history of the school too!
We have also been busy asking other businesses for donations/recycling where we can, trying to make the most of our small budget.'
The following are some "Before" and "After" photos of the work so far........
'We have installed green screens to screen the children from the road and reduce air pollution, and also created two living 'Teepees'. A new digging area and sand pit has also been created.
The money you gave us has been used to create a raised planter which the children will use to grow, flowers, herbs and vegetables.
I am sure will agree that there has been massive improvement since we started! Thank you very much for your contribution'
