School cooks up a storm to share with community

Pupils and staff from the whole school were involved in harvesting their homegrown vegetables and turning them into marvellous minestrone and scrumptious spicy pumpkin soup to share with the local community.

Headteacher Catherine Vardy said: “The whole school took part in the event.

“Our Year 6 pupils took responsibility for the soup, some harvested vegetables grown in our raised beds and others brought in produce from home.

“Under supervision they chopped all the vegetables and cooked them.

“Years 2 and 5 made bread rolls to go with the soup and had lots of fun kneading the dough.

“Years 3 and 4 made blackberry and apple crumble with locally picked blackberries and donated cooking apples.

“Our reception and Year 1 children made autumn bunting to decorate the hall, so we were all involved.

“Not only is gardening a fantastic way of bringing the curriculum alive, it also helps to get young people outdoors in the fresh air to improve their health and wellbeing.”

Neighbours and the local gardening club in Bishops Cannings were also invited to donate any surplus vegetables from their gardens.

Miss Vardy added: “Our porch was full of pumpkins, marrows, carrots and cooking apples.”

School governor, Caroline Martin, said: “We served over 80 bowls of soup and were cleaned out of crumble!

“It was lovely to see so many people and a wonderful way for us to get together with our local community and share some delicious homemade food.”

The Big Soup Share is run by the Royal Horticultural Society and is a chance to celebrate all the work that is done in the garden by harvesting crops, whizzing them up into a delicious soup and sharing it out with others, including your school or group. The initiative was developed last year to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its Campaign for School Gardening.

To find out more, please visit www. schoolgardening.rhs.org.uk/Competitions/Big-Soup-Share