Open Morning at Riverbank
Beechgrove Garden?…..No! It’s the Riverbank Garden & Gardeners
I never knew we had so many green fingered people at Riverbank. Read on if you want to find out more.
Friday saw one of Riverbank’s best attended Open Mornings ever. Thank you to all our parents, carers, friends and partners who visited us on Friday.
The morning was broken into three main sections. From 9.30 until 10.30 our visitors could visit their children in their classrooms and they could also take the short walk across the playground to visit one of Riverbank’s gardens where, on display, there were fifteen trugs which had been designed by the pupils of Riverbank’s nursery and school. Each class as well as the morning and afternoon nursery classes had a trug. The children had to design the layout of plants in the trugs. The trugs were planted and tended with the climax being that some of our visitors would judge the trugs and find a winning one.
We had four judges who had an extremely difficult job to carry out as the trugs were all excellent. The four judges were Steven Shaw – Environment Manger for Aberdeen City Council, Juliet Robertson – Author of Dirty Teaching – A Beginner’s Guide to Learning Outdoors and Jim and Bob the gardeners who came in to ‘dig out’ the wilderness that preceded our lovely fenced garden. To help our judges, the classes had typed up a short explanation of the thinking behind their trug design.
Meanwhile, back in the classrooms, our visitors could join with the children in tasks relating to Outdoor Education which has been a big initiative at Riverbank School this session.
The second part of the morning was supplied courtesy of our very helpful Parent Council who served teas and coffees in the dining room.
Then, after some refreshment, we enjoyed part three of the morning which was the end of session sharing assembly, the announcement of the trug winners and a presentation to Mrs Jolly our former head teacher who has taken up a new post as Head of Service for Professional Learning. And….just in case you missed the announcement, P5-6 won first prize for the best trug.
Also, on display in the hall was a 2 metre high sculpture of Wojtek, the bear. Wojtek is famous in Polish history for being part of the Polish Army during World War II. The sculpture was part of an arts project involving Primaries 6 and 7 which also included creative dance on the same subject. Wojtek was a great focal point, in the hall during the assembly and presentation, his body was decorated with pieces of writing by the children in P6 and 7.
This was a very successful morning.