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Education, All big ticks

Esh Group – Grow with Esh

“Grow with Esh is not just about growing plants, it’s about growing minds, growing communities, growing awareness of nature and striving to make a positive difference to our environment. The most exciting discovery is that the growing and learning will continue...”

Greatham Primary School, HartlepoolTeacher

Launched four years ago, ‘Grow with Esh’ is a scheme aimed at helping young people to develop gardening and horticultural project in or near their school grounds. Working as a competition the programme not only enhances learning opportunities within the school grounds but provides pupils with hands-on experiences.

The Story

Esh Group firmly believe that they have a role to play in helping to create tomorrow’s competitive workforce by working with schools to raise the achievements of young people. Grow with Esh was developed with the purpose for enhancing the Group’s profile and reputation within the region and support their up-skilling programme for employees.

Using the focus of the horticultural project the scheme is designed to instigate a wide range of positive outcomes in schools across the North East. These include creating an area that can be used as a teaching aid, project theme or learning facility across the curriculum. The projects have been used within a wide variety of subjects from maths and science to art and literature.

The competition is promoted to primary schools across the North East who are invited to send in ideas for a gardening project. Twenty schools across the region are selected and receive a grant of £750 which is used to set up and develop concepts, which have included vegetable patches, butterfly gardens and sensory trails. Those exceptional projects which are engaging not only the pupils but the broader communities and delivering real impact are recognised at an autumn prize giving ceremony.

Since its launch Grow with Esh has enabled 80 schools and thousands of children across the North East to restore derelict school surroundings, learn through creativity and build links within their local communities.

Impact

Business Impact

Grow with Esh was set up with the aim to enhance the Group’s profile and reputation in the North East – to date the partnership has delivered over £30,000 worth of positive press.
The competition is part of Esh Group’s up-skilling programme and supports the development of communication, management and supervisory skills.
During tendering processes Esh Group are able to clearly demonstrate through Grow with Esh how they invest in the local community, particularly within the region’s primary schools.

Social Impact

To date 80 schools in the North East have been involved in the programme and in 2009 alone over 5,000 young people took part.
The programme has enabled skills and achievement levels among both the young people and teachers to develop. These include budgeting, report writing, 3D modelling and projects on mini-beats and the weather.
Through the programme many of the schools have developed strong relationships with local secondary schools and their local communities – many of whom provided support on building the gardens.

Education Award Big Tick 2010

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