Clevedon School Unveils Plans for New Secret Garden to Transform Student Learning and Wellbeing
By Schools Correspondent
A previously underused area of Clevedon School is being transformed into a new “Secret Garden” – creating a unique outdoor learning, horticulture and wellbeing resource for students.
The project is being developed with Helen Woodward, a professional gardener who is bringing her professional horticultural expertise into the heart of the school.
The aim is to create a working garden rather than simply an attractive space: somewhere students can learn practical gardening skills, understand habitats and biodiversity, grow and care for plants, and experience the benefits of working outdoors.
The Secret Garden will support teaching across the curriculum and is being designed with future courses in mind, including the new GCSE Natural History qualification.
It will provide a living environment in which students can observe ecological processes, develop fieldwork and identification skills and see seasonal change at first hand.
Alongside its curriculum role, the garden will also provide a quieter setting for carefully planned therapeutic and small-group sessions.
This combination of practical learning, environmental education and wellbeing is central to the school’s vision for the space.
A school garden can be an extraordinary classroom. Students learn practical horticultural skills, but they also learn patience, observation, problem-solving and the importance of caring for a living environment.
What is exciting about the Secret Garden is that students will help shape it over time - it will be a working, changing space rather than a finished display.
Helen Woodward, said:
“We wanted to reclaim this part of the site and turn it into somewhere with
a clear purpose for students.
“The Secret Garden brings together so many strands of our work: student leadership, sustainability, curriculum learning and wellbeing. Students will be able to learn by actually doing - planting, growing, observing, maintaining and
improving the space.”
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Jo Carrington, Head of Literacy and Student Leadership Academy Assistant Headteacher, said:
“One of the most exciting things about this project is the transformation itself. We have taken an area that had effectively been lost to student use and turned it into a distinctive educational resource.
“It will support formal qualifications, practical skills and therapeutic work, while also creating another part of the school where students can feel ownership and pride.”
Jim Smith, Headteacher, said:
“Work on the site includes clearing and recovering overgrown areas, retaining useful established planting, developing growing beds and creating spaces that can be used safely by groups of students.
“The garden will continue to evolve as students take an active role in its cultivation and development.”
Clevedon School is a secondary school with Sixth Form and is part of Futura Learning Partnership.
The school’s motto is ‘Be Kind Be Brilliant’.
The Secret Garden forms part of the school’s wider commitment to environmental education, student leadership and creating purposeful spaces for learning beyond the traditional classroom.
