St Mary's Catholic School has recently been accepted into the national Enviroschools Programme, its application assisted by its new gardening project, ‘grow our own.'

PTA parent Jo Allum with students Isabella Marwick and Isaiah Boyce look forward to growing their own fruits and vegetables in their new gardens at St Mary's Catholic School.

'With ‘grow our own' students can learn the basics of growing fruits and vegetables and help give back to the community,” says PTA parent and project coordinator Jo Allum.
'The vision of the project is to inspire students to be creative and become competent at simple gardening and for teachers to reshape and refocus everyday activities so that the potential for environmentally friendly practices is maximised and the garden is considered as an important part of the school day.”
The gardening project helps the school and its students become more environmentally friendly and aware. Fruits, vegetables and cut flowers will be the main focus giving students the opportunity to taste, cook and learn about various plants.
'I grew up in London and my school was literally a concrete playground, so I started this project knowing nothing about gardening,” says Jo.
'I've been doing a plant propagation course with Agribusiness which has allowed me to stay one step ahead of the students and its fun to be able to learn alongside them.”
The garden is set up on the neighbouring Sisters of Joseph of Cluny convent land.
PTA members have been preparing the beds and students have been planting seedlings in egg cartons. Extra seedlings will be sold in a school fundraising sale and a large percentage will be given to the Pastoral Care school programme. Cut flowers will adorn St Mary's Church and some parents have offered to bottle excess fruits into preserves and chutneys to be sold in a school market.
The project coincides with the national Enviroschools Programme to teach students how the environment, ecology, education, society and culture each contribute to creating a sustainable world. St Mary's Catholic School is also the first beneficiary of a new programme from the Environmental Education for Resource Sustainability Trust, which aims to make schools truly sustainable by using rain water to manage students' gardens.
'We feel very fortunate to have been accepted into the Enviroschools Programme,” says teacher and Enviroschools coordinator James Murray.
'The garden helped this cause and we've been very lucky to have the support of the community and city council. We've also had a lot of support from local businesses who have donated seeds and materials to set up the gardens and keep them.