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Edible Playgrounds Food Growing Educators – expression of interest

Employer
Trees for Cities
Location
NE England (Newcastle/Sunderland), Midlands/Central (West Bromwich/Nottingham),West Yorkshire (Bradf
Salary
oThe budget is no more than £3,000 per school project.
Closing date
26 Jul 2019

Trees for Cities (TfC) is the only UK charity working at a national and international scale to improve lives by planting trees and greening cities. We get stuck in with local communities to cultivate lasting change in their neighbourhoods – whether it’s revitalising forgotten spaces, creating healthier environments or getting people excited about growing, foraging and eating healthy food.

THE EDIBLE PLAYGROUNDS PROGRAMME

Edible Playgrounds transform school grounds into vibrant outdoor teaching gardens that inspire hands-on learning and get children excited about growing and eating healthy food. They help improve health and wellbeing, open up access to nature, and provide a fun outdoor learning environment that supports cross-curriculum teaching.

The Edible Playgrounds programme offers a comprehensive service comprising engagement of the whole school community, design, build, planting with pupils, teacher training, and planning support throughout the academic year.

The success of this programme has meant that we have increased our delivery year on end. In 2018 – 2019 we completed nearly 30 school projects across London, Birmingham and Liverpool. We are now upscaling this programme to delivering upwards of 50 edible playgrounds over the coming year in towns and cities across the country.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

We are looking for food-growing educators who would like to work with us to deliver support for schools during their first year of growing.

The appointed educator(s) should have a proven track record in delivering gardening schemes in schools and be able to demonstrate how their support has helped schools successfully integrate growing into their school ethos and curriculum. All applicants must hold valid DBS certificates prior to commencing work.

We seek individuals/organisations who will be able to manage a programme of support delivery across a cluster of schools in one area and/or a number of areas in one region.

They will be supported by TfC’ in house teams as follows:

TfC’ Design Team who will produce the garden design following close consultation with the school community. TfC’ Landscape Team or Contracted builder will construct the Edible Playground TfC’ Edible Playgrounds Education Team who will oversee the UK wide education support. We currently run the support programme in schools across London, Liverpool and Birmingham. We have a range of resources to support delivery in all aspects of the programme.

KEY DELIVERY ELEMENTS

Support programme must include following elements:

Consulting and engaging with whole school community – delivery may include staff briefing, school assemblies, meeting parents, governors and grounds staff. Developing bespoke management plan and planting plan in consultation with school and in line with Trees for Cities’ programme guidelines. Ordering and managing delivery of appropriate vegetable seeds, soft fruit, herbs and fruit trees. Horticultural training for staff – covering key horticulture skills throughout the growing season (composting, seed sowing, planting out, harvesting). Horticultural support - advice and workshops - demonstrating best practice growing with pupils to support and give confidence to teaching staff. Educational support - identifying curriculum links, embedding the project in a wider whole school ethos of healthy eating and outdoor learning. Sharing existing Edible Playground resource materials with schools. Monitoring and evaluation, including data collection, analysis, report and review in line with Trees for Cities Monitoring and Evaluation processes. Being the main point of contact for each school during the one year education support programme. We are keen to work with individuals/organisations who can offer added value to the key delivery elements. Please identify this in your application.

TIME FRAME

The project builds will commence between autumn 2019 – spring 2020 and schools will require support for one year following construction, meaning projects will end between autumn 2020 – spring 2021.

There are ambitions for the project to become a multi-year offer and the contract may undergo review and renewal at the end of that period of time. This may mean additional projects in existing areas or expansion to other UK towns and cities.

DEADLINE

Interested individuals/organisations should return expressions of interest no later than 12 noon on Monday 26th July 2019, addressed to Louise Purnell, Edible Playground Manager, Trees for Cities, Prince Consort Lodge, Kennington Park, Kennington Park Place, London SE11 4AS, or via email to louise@treesforcities.org.

All pre-submission queries to be issued in writing via email address above no later than Wed 24th July 2019.

Please visit our website to view a full brief on what to include in the expression of interest form.

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