During the John Colet Garden’s second year we feel very fortunate to have been recognised with a Stephanie Alexander National Kitchen Garden Award. As Winners of the Down To Earth category, competing against 500 entries, John Colet received over $4,000 in prizes and funds to further advance our sustainable education resources.
2025 Statistics
- Overall food waste diverted from landfill and turned into compost – Almost 1.5 tonnes.
- Food waste collected from recess buckets by Garden Monitors – 212 kg.
- Produce harvested and contributed to the kitchen – A record 190 kg!
- Total composted since 2024 – 3,487 kg
- Total produce grown since 2024 – 353 kg
Kitchen Garden Classes
The year’s classes began by exploring where our food comes from. Concepts such as product lifecycles, origins, distribution and food system diversity were discussed. With this knowledge children then planned and constructed their own food system using farm Lego, carefully considering the relationships of all components. As a reflection of our local and urban school food system students were offered school-grown native Davidson Plum jam to taste.
During Term Two, sessions focused on Colour in Nature, exploring various concepts including the philosophical origins of colour’s discovery, Isaac Newton’s visible spectrum of light, and the science behind why colour in food matters. Blue Butterfly Pea flowers were used to make a natural dye which changed pH/ colour as different natural indicators were added.
Children then learnt knife skills from Chef Galloway before preparing their own rainbow fruit skewers with a new understanding of the impacts of colour on the human body, and how these colours directly benefit their health (e.g. carrots improve eyesight).
Over the Winter months of term three classes detailed Bush Tucker, with students taking a short walk through the school noting and discussing significant native plants and their traditional indigenous uses.
Back in the garden children participated in a yarning circle where Country, culture, language, tradition, respect and acknowledgment were discussed. Artefacts and further examples of bush tucker were examined, along with discussion about how these ingredients can be used in modern Australian cooking. Before tasting a cup of warm honey and Lemon Myrtle tea, children washed their hands using native antibacterial soap wattle leaves.
The focus of fourth term classes was trees, with students discussing their benefits, the parts of a tree, their functions and how these can be likened to the human body. Classes observed a pinecone experiment, watching as it reacted to heat and closed to protect its seeds, therefore demonstrating a tree’s ability to feel. Personification was used as a tool throughout, encouraging children to better understand trees as a living thing and to re-evaluate their future relationship with nature.
In the Djaramada bush playground each class planted a native tree endemic to the area donated by Northern Beaches Council. Students then observed the Japanese practice of Shinrin-yoku (forest bathing), whilst they wrote a letter to a tree, an activity based on the City of Melbourne’s Urban Forest project and counted the rings on tree slices to determine their age.
At the close of the lesson students were offered a square of orange dipped in maple syrup and sprinkled with cinnamon, an example of different edible tree parts – the fruit, sap and bark.
5th and 6th Class Garden Monitors
This year’s Garden Monitors nurtured and sold 400 seedlings to the school community raising just over $500 to go towards future projects. We harvested our first apples, bananas, lemonades, chokos and red snake beans. Children also enjoyed observing the real time lifecycles of tadpoles, our first Monarch caterpillars since planting habitat fodder, and establishing an ant colony.
‘Gardeneers’ Garden Club
Each term during lunch a small group of infant and primary students enjoyed time in nature, explored how to grow food using organic principles, and practiced patience by growing from seed. Sessions included planting and harvesting, sustainable craft activities, environmental science-based content, learning about animals and ecosystems, and tasting the food that they helped to grow.
Parent volunteers
With many thanks to the families and parent volunteers that participated in working bees each term, or on Tuesday mornings. It is the service of these people that enriches the garden with a strong sense of community and keeps it producing at its best.
This year parent volunteers and staff grew 200 lettuces in our greenhouse to be given away at the Northern Beaches Schools Expo and successfully collected 3.5kgs of bottle tops to be recycled into clipboards.
2025 has been a very fruitful and productive year; I can’t wait to see what the garden offers in the year ahead.
Laurie Green
