Shotley's Project

Shotley found that children didn't think that school dinners included ingredients they liked or thought were fresh enough with many wanting fresh produce that they could enjoy. To remedy this they have decided to grow their own vegetables in the school gardens and create recipes that include these vegetables so they can use some of their own ingredients in the meal dishes they create. 

They also spoke with local farmers and producers to see which ingredients can be sourced locally and which will be good for the students to grow along with speaking to parents about vegetables patches at home and creating food with them.

Shotley found this important as they live in a farming area and have lots of experienced people around us to ask advice from. Many of them are keen on outdoor spaces and love to use locally sourced produce to make traditional dishes so homegrown fruit and vegetables were important to them as well as good for the environment.

You can hear from the students leading the project themselves:

The Year 6’s also created a pop-up restaurant and cooked for 60 guests in the

school kitchen one evening. Shotley has already grown chillies,cucumbers, pumpkins, and tomatoes and are keen to grow more next year.

Here you can find one of Shotley’s ASSET arrows’s giving a speech reflecting on the project: