School Children’s Fight to Save the British Apple Comes to Fruition

The school children who have turned their grounds into orchards to keep the endangered traditional habitats alive are now celebrating their first year of orchard development.

Following a year of being involved in the Fruit-Full Schools project, 50 secondary schools have now created orchards to preserve the long-forgotten local varieties of fruit within their neighbouring communities.

The Fruit-Full Schools programme, developed by the national school grounds charity- Learning through Landscapes- aims to support environmental sustainability and demonstrate the benefits of locally grown produce. So far it has enabled secondary schools to graft 1500 local heritage apple trees that are in risk of dying out.

As they enter their second year of this four year project, schools have so far grafted their trees, developed nursery environments and designed their own orchard areas in their grounds, each one receiving a further 1,000 to implement these designs. The schools have also been allocated a ‘Fruit-Full Schools Co-Ordinator’ from Learning through Landscapes, offering expertise, guidance and advice on orchard development.

Since the 1950s the area of orchard habitat across England has declined by more than 60%, and according to recent reports made by The People’s Trust for Endangered Species, half of those that remain are in a neglected condition. Orchards have been identified as a priority habitat in the UK’s Biodiversity Action Plan and more recently, community orchards have received Government endorsement with the release of a new guide to encourage the growth of orchards in the community. The Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles described the community orchard as “a brilliant way for communities to get together”.

The Fruit-Full Schools project is helping to rejuvenate the growth of over 150 different English varieties and is having a huge impact on all of the participating school’s communities, with 76 local community organisations supporting their local schools in the programme.

In the years to come the schools plan to re-plant some of their home grown trees in local primary schools and community spaces, to implement further designs to their own orchards and run campaigns to save local fruit by aiming to collect 100,000 signatures. By 2013 the schools will celebrate the harvest of their first fruit by redistributing produce among the local community and disadvantaged groups.

Pauline Williamson the Environmental and Outdoor Learning Coordinator at a participating school, Ormiston Victory Academy, explains, “One of our selected trees, the Five Crowned Pippin dates back to the 1500s. We believe that this and other varieties should not die out. Our orchard will help in the revival of up to 28 endangered Norfolk fruit varieties, mostly apples, including eleven which are all Norwich varieties such as the two Costessey varieties, New Costessey Seedling and the Herbert Eastoe.”

“In its history, Norfolk has had a rich tradition of apple-growing, but now many Norfolk varieties are in danger of fading out. The Fruit-Full Schools project is aiding us in our quest to reverse this decline. Creating a traditional orchard by planting endangered varieties here in our school grounds and out in our community area has made us feel that we are doing our bit to help people understand the heritage of Norfolk fruit and to also to experience the distinctive local flavours.”

Resources from the Fruit-Full Schools programme are now available online for all primary and secondary schools across the UK to participate: www.fruitfullschools.org .

The ‘ Fruit-Full Schools’ programme has been developed by Learning through Landscapes in partnership with orchard experts Garden Organic and Common Ground. The project aims to enable tens of thousands of children across the UK to establish and maintain traditional fruit orchards within their school grounds in partnership with their local communities.

Fruit-Full Schools is funded by the Big Lottery Fund’s Local Food scheme, the City Bridge Trust, and by the Garfield Weston and John Spedan Lewis Foundations.

LEARNING THROUGH LANDSCAPES (LTL ): is the national charity working to ensure that every child benefits from outdoor learning and play. It advises government, engages the private sector and empowers school communities and early years settings to make the best of their outside spaces for children’s education and well being.

In a recent survey of schools that improved their grounds with LTL support, 88% said it had resulted in more creative learning and environmental awareness among pupils. Despite such benefits, 80% of teachers in a recent MORI poll said they believe that their school is failing to make the most of their outdoor spaces. LTL aims to change this and is the only organisation focussing specifically on school environments in order to do so.

Over the past 20 years, LTL has worked directly with over 10,000 schools, raised over 24 million pounds for grounds improvements and trained thousands of teachers and practitioners to help them rethink the design and use of their outdoor environments. Fruit-full Schools is just one of the exciting programme’s we’ve developed to help them do this. We’re the lead partner for this programme contributing project management expertise as well as experience of working with schools. www.ltl.org.uk

GARDEN ORGANIC

It is a partner in the Food for Life programme which aims to reach out through schools to give communities access to seasonal, local and organic food, and to the skills they need to cook and grow fresh food for themselves.

Garden Organic is providing the Fruit-full Schools team and participating schools with training and technical support in tree care, maintenance and orchard design. They have produced the wealth of technical notes on tree care you’ll find on this site and have also planted a small demonstration orchard at Ryton Gardens in Coventry

COMMON GROUND

It originated and continues to champion the idea of Local Distinctiveness, celebrating what makes places different from each other and significant to us. It aims to inspire all of us to join in exploration of the richness in everyday places, popular culture, common wild life, ordinary buildings and landscapes, to revalue our emotional engagement with places and all that they mean to us and to go on to become actively involved in their care.

Common Ground is supporting Fruit-full Schools to explore local heritage and customs relating to fruit and orchards.

LOCAL FOOD : has been developed by a consortium of 15 national environmental organisations, and is managed on their behalf by the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT). Supported by the Big Lottery Fund’s Changing Spaces Programme, Local Food will distribute grants to a variety of food related projects to make locally grown food more accessible. www.localfoodgrants.org

THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF WILDLIFE TRUSTS (RSWT): is a registered charity, incorporated by Royal Charter, to promote conservation and manage environmental programmes throughout the whole of the UK. It has been established management systems for holding and distributing funds totalling more than 20 Million annually to environmental projects across the UK.

THE BIG LOTTERY FUND’S Changing spaces programme was launched in November 2005 to help communities enjoy and improve their local environments. The programme funds a range of activities from local food scheme and farmers markets, to education projects teaching people about the local environment.

The Big Lottery Fund, the largest of the National Lottery good cause distributors, has been rolling out 2Million in Lottery good cause money every 24 hours to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK.