Garden to Table In Action - Wesley School

This year marks 5 years since Wesley School - a small primary school located in Mount Roskill, launched Garden to Table with two of its seven classes.

Wesley’s programme has grown from strength to strength, and today, the benefits flow back into the broader community - bringing tamariki, and their whānau together for rich learning and meaningful experiences.  

Last year, one of our volunteers - Deb Ward, visited the school, to see the tamariki in action.  

When Deb arrived, she found the students busily preparing for their upcoming market day. In the kitchen, some children were tasting their Vegetarian Sapasui (Chop Suey) - a recipe they had been working hard to perfect, to check if it needed a dash more soy sauce, salt or pepper. Others were making birdseed stress balls, painted pots and hanging planters.  

In the garden, seven brightly painted raised beds sit alongside picnic tables at the edge of the asphalt court. There are beans, artichokes, cabbage and kale in the beds, with peach, lemon and feijoa trees creating shade. The tamariki were found tending to the weeds. As they did so, they noticed how fennel seedlings have popped up downwind from where an established plant had gone to seed. 

Before long, the students were chatting about how Auckland’s long drought, combined with the COVID-19 lockdowns, had affected their crops. As they did so, they gained a better understanding of water’s important role in creating healthy, tasty vegetables and fruit. Young Sulia says that she loves watering the plants “so they can grow big and we can eat them for lunch”.  

The school’s Garden to Table kitchen specialist, Suchi Venkat says this incidental learning is all part of the Garden to Table programme – whether it’s science or maths, reading or writing.   

But, it’s not only the students who are immersed in learning, through Garden to Table.

In fact, Suchi has taken Wesley’s programme a step further, and created an after-school Healthy Eating Project, alongside Doreen Wakefield.  

Every fortnight, children and their parents learn to cook low-cost, nutritious meals featuring vegetables grown at school.  

The quest to extend Garden to Table by adding classes for whanau started because Suchi - a new entrants’ teacher - saw the effect of poor diets in her own classroom. 

“After 11 in the morning, the kids lost their attention.  I saw the food they ate – the chips, the pies – and got really frustrated. Diabetes and obesity is an issue amongst our children. I’m not here to preach but I am about a balanced diet”.  

By showing how the vegetables being grown could make healthy, tasty and easy meals, Suchi knew she could make a real difference. 

The success of the Healthy Eating Project is evident in the attendance on the day Garden to Table came to visit. Many of the Mums and children have been coming since the Project started.

“Garden to Table gets the whanau engaged.  Parents don’t just come to pick up their children from school now, they come to the programme and spend time cooking together, with vegetables the children picked from the garden”. 

Doreen teaches the parents in these sessions about nutrition and eating a balanced diet.  Mum Josie says the programme has taught her family to enjoy vegetables more. Carrots cut up into pieces have become a regular snack – even a treat. 

Other elements of the programme are appreciated too. “It’s a really good experience,” says Mum Anna - “I am getting to know what’s cheap and healthy.  And it’s good to get my girl (Sarah, 9) cooking with me too”.

As Sarah finishes creating her dish, other children set up a dining table.  At the end of each session, all of the families sit together to enjoy their meal.  Every pupil and their Mum gave a definite thumbs up for the dishes on the menu that afternoon - which is all the encouragement Suchi needs to start planning the recipes for the next session.  

- Written by volunteer Deb Ward 

Did this story inspire you? Do you want to see more schools doing the Garden to Table programme? Please, consider a donation towards this essential mahi if you are able, doing so helps more tamariki to grow, harvest, prepare and share fresh, seasonal food at school.