Tuesday Class at Hampton Hill Junior School

I'm posting this a day late, but yesterday we visited Hampton Hill Junior School which is located out in the quaint Richmond/Twickenham area outside of London in a gorgeous Victorian Era school building. Right as we walked through the gates we could see the garden through another gate to our right and the foot path most likely traveled by much smaller feet wound off around the side of the school. Our coordinator for the day, a 4th Year teacher and the garden manager, greeted us inside. Surprisingly, the first thing we did was sit in on the first part of a string music recital some of the kids were putting on for their parents. An outside organization had come into the school for, if I remember correctly, the past few weeks to teach the kids the basics of violin, viola and cello. Most songs consisted of open strings and one finger down, but honestly I was pretty impressed. I've always thought a music education is important especially in younger grades, just as much as I think learning hands on in the garden is so I thought this was a really cool experience for the children. 

Then we went on a tour of the garden, which was probably the most impressive school garden I've seen yet. A large raised pond sat in one end of the garden full of frogs, newts, plants and many other creatures. Raising it off the ground not only decreases the drowning liability, but allows the kids to see things closer to eye level. Then there were small beds dedicated to certain lessons such as plants that could be used as dye, an herb bed and so on. Bug hotels provided an area for kids to search for critters and two empty dirt beds were provided just for little hands and trowels to simply dig around in. A large patio with benches served as a perfect meeting or lesson area. Just on the other side of this were the raised beds for fruits and veggies, a small greenhouse for seed starting and storage, and a potting bench at a good level for kids to pot up seeds and starter plants. The kids also had designated wellies for walking around in muddy areas and a small shed for their tools, gloves and other supplies. 

The thing that impressed me the most was the chicken coop at the very back end of the garden. 10 chickens scratching around in their fence in yard with a large and small coops/pens for locking them in at night clucked curiously at us as we crowded their living space. A good number of chickens had been hatched by the children and all the chickens had names like Henrietta, Blossom, Honeysuckle and Omelette. Opening an easily accessible hatch in the side we found around 6 eggs the children would get to collect later. These eggs were sold on Fridays to parents and the money mainly went to covering the feed for the layers. Our guide explained how many children rotated through the role of Chicken Monitor. 

My job when we worked with the class was to help plant seeds and the students loved hearing about the sensitive plant whose leaves curl up when you touch them and marveled at how small the seeds were. When they weren't planting seeds, they were immediately running off to the pond. Just their excitement about everything in the pond convinced me that every school needs something like that. After the class got out, we spoke at the all-class assembly where the kids asked us a lot of questions, mostly about America. I had to laugh at how huge their eyes got when we told them how cold Minnesota could get and how much snow we still had on the ground. But I had a great time with the kids and I loved their garden program.