Gardening in Schools - Any teachers / TA's?

[wonderings2]

I wanted to suggest to DD's school that I set up a gardening club or similar, my education is in environmental management and I've previously volunteered for a local charity running kids activity days and educational sessions outdoors. I've done some research and there are grants you can get and as I have connections with local landscaping companies I could rustle up some donations to get started.

Specifically for DD's class (reception) I was just going to have a chat about getting the children's growing some bits in pots?

Are there any school teachers or TA's here who can tell me if I would just be a nuisance and adding to an already big workload or if they actually like parents getting involved and suggesting things like this?

I cant find any details about a PTA on the school website and when I suggested it in passing to someone they didn't seem keen - there seems to a be small group of parents who arrange school discos, bake sakes etc but its quite cliquey.

Id rather be shot down here, so please be honest 😅

We have a couple of parents who organise gardening activities. Apart from being good for the kids, it helps make the school grounds look nice. However it's a personal bugbear of mine when people offer their services just to benefit their dc's class.

Oh okay, so you shouldn't offer help only to your DC's year, its best to offer to do things that include the whole school? I'm totally new to this and don't know what the etiquette is..

DD is in reception so they have a large area of fenced off playground with some old pots and dead plants so it looks like they've done something similar in the past few years.

The head seems approachable and she always there at pick up and drop off so I might just be brave and have a chat with her one day.

I used to do some gardening activities at the primary school where I was a governor. It was at the request of the teacher in the class for which I was link governor; other teachers didn’t seem interested, although I wouldn’t have had time to work with every class.

The RHS has lots of resources now on gardening in schools.

Yes I think it's better to offer your services to the whole school and let the head decide where she could best use you. Perhaps you could offer to do a lunchtime club so it doesn't disrupt lessons and might be nice for dcs who aren't into football or running around. We used to have a lady come one afternoon a week and it was quite disruptive when she'd pull out groups of children.

My DCs primary had an after school gardening club- I think a teacher ran it but they would have been very pleased if a parent had volunteered! I think it was for y2 and y3. It was a small school and they tried to have different clubs for different years.