The Heys Primary School in Ashton is taking part in the Big Grow 2021 competition to encourage its pupils to learn more about food sustainability and exploring the great outdoors.
The national competition, which is run by the not-for-profit social enterprise, Grow It Yourself (GIY) in partnership with innocent, provides schools with everything they need to start growing their own vegetables. This includes packs of seeds, compost discs and cups for growing, as well as teacher resource packs with fun lesson plans and star grower badges.
Year One pupils from The Heys Primary School have taken on the challenge of growing their own food, as part of the school’s wider commitment to enhancing well-being and promoting healthy lifestyles. This comes as pupils have returned to school following a year of restrictions and lockdowns – a period which has highlighted the importance of staying physically and mentally active.
The winning school will be the one that has shown the most ingenuity and created the biggest splash when showing off the fruits of their labour. GIY will announce the lucky school at the end of May, which will be awarded funding to invest in a new or enhanced school garden, benefiting current and future pupils.
Explaining their reasons for entering the Big Grow competition, Lyndsay Davison, headteacher at The Heys, said: “It’s really crucial for children to see first-hand how the food that ends up on their plates is grown.
“Often, they will only see packets on a supermarket shelf, but the Big Grow competition teaches them about the hard work involved in producing this food.
“We look forward to seeing the children engage with the challenge and their understanding of food ethics evolve over the coming weeks and months.”
Browse through this album of photos, captured by our photographer Nigel Wood:
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Michael Kelly, founder and CEO at GIY, added: “It’s so important to teach food empathy and sustainability from a young age. Even the smallest of food growing experiences can change people’s mindset with regards to food, which is why we started the Big Grow competition ten years ago. We hope that The Heys Primary School uses the competition as motivation to get their pupils even more engaged with nature and the foods they eat.”
Since 2011, over 1.5 million pupils across the UK and Ireland have entered the competition, as part of GIY’s mission to help people live happier, healthier and more sustainable lives by growing their own food.
Following 10 years of success with its school competition, GIY is now launching its Big Grow at home competition with innocent. Keen green fingers are encouraged to show off their growing skills to be in with a chance of winning one year’s worth of fruit and vegetables. The competition is open from now until July.
According to research from GIY, 2020 was a huge year for food growing, with 250,000 new growing families started in 2020. This year, GIY is keen to reach over one million families through the school and home competitions.
Michael continued: “The success of the school competition has inspired us to reach out to everyone across the UK and Ireland, whatever age they are, and encourage them to get involved. Growing your own food has so many positives. It not only impacts our physical health, but also our mental health and well-being, which has become even more important in the past 12 months. We look forward to launching the competition and seeing the nation’s growing talents first-hand.”
To find out more about the Big Grow at home competition and how you can get involved, visit: https://innocentbiggrow.com/win-big
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