Students at De La Salle School Basildon have started work on a project that will be of huge benefit to the school community in a variety of ways.

The initiative centres on the creation of a Community school garden designed around the Five Core Lasallian Principles providing teaching spaces, counselling spaces, prayer labyrinth, and a garden way of the cross.

One benefit is that the project will promote the church’s call for the care of our common home and integral ecological commitment. The garden creation and ongoing maintenance provides teaching opportunities across all ages and abilities in school. This teaching will focus on improving ecological diversity, habitat creation, sustainability, linked to gospel messages of care for the world around us.

It will also serve to promote awareness of Catholic Social Teaching and action by students in favour of the most vulnerable in society, while longer term aspirations are to provide ‘paths to transformation’ through horticultural qualifications utilising the garden as the main teaching space and working with local charities in the community to bring those on the peripheries of the school and wider society together in constructive ways.

The garden will also promote Spiritual Formation among students and young Lasallians as it will provide the opportunity for all community members to be mindful they are in the presence of God. Either in structured periods of worship, individual reflection, Spaces of safety and repose or meditative journeys using the garden way of the cross and the Labyrinth.

The initial work on the project has included many demographics of the school including our SEN and additional studies groups to help in the garden.

“We have defined garden spaces and planted native hedging trees. Using the Lasallian Leavening Fund we have planted 50Kg of daffodil bulbs and created a series of raised beds - the construction of which has been led by the boys in our Year 11 additional studies group. 

"We are using some monies to co-finance a small orchard and will be hiring machinery to dig conduits as well as levelling spaces for greenhouses and digging a pond. We are commissioning garden artworks as reflection points on our Garden Way of the Cross with contributions from our own student body see below”, explained project co-ordinator, Matt Girling.