All-staff kitchen garden training sessions

Did you know that the Foundation can now come to your school or centre to run an all-staff kitchen garden training session?

The Foundation’s training team has already travelled to several sites around Australia to conduct hands-on professional development days that have engaged the whole staff and been tailored to individual needs.

Cape Byron Rudolf Steiner School, in the beautiful rainforest outside Byron Bay, booked in a session in December last year to run an all-staff PD day.

The school is a member of the Foundation’s Kitchen Garden Classroom and, although they were already cooking and gardening with some year levels in line with Steiner principles, they were looking for support and advice on how to implement a more structured kitchen garden program.

The training was conducted by Josie Charles, one of our kitchen garden gurus, who said it was a pleasure to hold a training session in a school with such dedicated staff and a lovely canteen kitchen to work in.

The session – which included curriculum integration and hands-on cooking sessions, followed by a shared meal and garden tour – was very popular with the participants too…

“It was wonderful for the whole primary faculty to get involved and inspired.”

“A tangible experience of something I’m passionate about and wanted/tried to implement.”

“The training was presented so very clearly with warmth and enthusiasm, and I loved the hands-on session as much as the group work beforehand.”

“Lots of ideas, brilliant material, good presentation.”

“Josie gave us a comprehensive introduction to the Program and a fabulous practical session in the kitchen.”

“Lovely, friendly, helpful approach.”

Josie said the agenda for the training day was designed specifically for this session, including prior consultation with the school’s Kitchen Garden Program Coordinator.

“Getting the intention of the session at the start of the discussion is crucial to achieving a happy outcome,” she said.

Another successful all-school training session was held at Tenison Woods College, Mt Gambier, in March this year.

Tenison Woods have been running the Kitchen Garden Program for four years with Years 3-7, but were looking for support to run the Program right across the primary school, and fully integrating it with their curriculum.

Josie ran a series of 90-minute workshops over one day at the school, so a large number of staff could attend across the day without causing too much disruption to classes or teacher release time.

The school’s Kitchen Garden Program Coordinator, Jen McCourt, said the staff had enjoyed learning from Josie’s vast knowledge and practical experience working in school programs.

“As a school in a fairly isolated rural district this was a great opportunity for us to easily deliver effective and accurate information to a large cohort of staff in a cost effective manner.  It was also significant that Josie could see and experience our garden location, outputs and challenges, to assist with delivering an insightful and inspiring program,’’ Jen said.

Ajuga School, a special school in Glenfield NSW, has been running the Kitchen Garden Program for four years and held its second all-staff training this year.

The school made use of a curriculum day before the start of Term 1 to hold the session, which aimed to teach new staff at the school about the Kitchen Garden Program and re-engage existing staff.

Josie said the day was a great team-building experience for the staff, who are all involved in the kitchen garden classes at the school.

The Ajuga staff commented at the end of the day that they had particularly enjoyed working together as groups to cook, sharing the meal together, and the practical garden activities …

“It gave me ideas to implement in the classroom and useful resources to access.”

“It was a great day, well paced and interesting.”

Check out the photo gallery above for a taste of the all-staff training days.

Feeling inspired? Find out how we can help you hold an all-staff training session at your school or centre – just get in touch with the Support Team on support@kitchengardenfoundation.org.au or 13000 SAKGF (72543).