Schools design sustainable gardens

Schools across Worcestershire and the West Midlands have designed and built a set of sustainable gardens. Head judge, Bob Sweet, who described the standard as high, has praised the efforts of the fourteen schools that participated.

The “Best School Garden” award has been presented to Burlish Park Primary School, from Stourport-on-Severn, which had pupils as young as eight and nine working on the project.

“The standard is the highest I’ve ever seen,” said Mr Sweet. He added that future competitions could be split by age categories.

Rhian Duckworth, a teacher at Burlish Park Primary School, said that the children got a “huge amount” out of the project, which involved growing plants from seed, building bird boxes to sell and carrying out research on the medicinal properties of the plants that the children grew in their garden.

“Absolutely every one of the children was involved and got a huge amount out of it,” Rhian said.