News & Updates

Food Hubs in Schools: Food Hubs can be a fun way for schools to get involved in building their local food economy, learn how to set up a social enterprise and make a bit of money for the school. An action pack is freely available to download from the Local United website. 

Trees for Schools: The Woodland Trust has a range of free tree packs available to schools, youth groups and communities. There are two packs on offer consisting of 105 and 420 trees to be supplied in young saplings about 20-40cm high. If you know of some public land in your local area that would benefit from trees, then apply via the Woodland Trust website.

School Food Growing Campaign: A new campaign publication called 'Every School A Food Growing School' has been produced by a number of groups involved with education, gardening and food growing, including FCFCG. The aim is to persuade Government departments to work with third sector groups to ensure that children can reap the benefits of learning gardening skills and growing their own food. A copy of the publication is available to download by using the following link: School Gardening Campaign Document

School Food Growing Task Force: A Task Force has been formed to encourage more school to grow fruit and vegetables. FCFCG (representing its member groups, the School Farms Network and Growing with Schools in Coventry, is part of the taskforce and will be taking an active part developing new strategies to help give every child hands-on learning about growing food during their school years. The Food Growing in Schools Task Force is led by Garden Organic and includes Blue Peter gardener Chris Collins, former England rugby union captain Lawrence Dallaglio, The Sun’s gardening correspondent Peter Seabrook, the Royal Horticultural Society, the Women’s Institute, and Morrison’s supermarket.Research shows that more than 96 per cent of children are not eating enough fruit and vegetables and that children in schools which grow food eat more than one and a half more of their five-a-day than other school children. For more details go to the Task Force website.

Reciproc8 Recycling: FCFCG has formed links with this company which provides free products and experiences to UK schools and education organisations via a recycling rewards scheme. Products include anything from hen houses to childrens' gardening tools and experiences include visits to venues such as farms, field study centres, botanic gardens, museums, historic houses and zoos. The scheme is simple - you gain Reciproc8 Points for the mobile phones and inkjet cartridges collected for recycling. These points can then be redeemed against the range of products and experiences. Setting up a scheme is easy, it’s done on-line and only takes a couple of minutes. Details of the full range of rewards available and further information on the scheme is available at www.reciproc8.co.uk, or you can call the Reciproc8  team on 0845 194 8288.