How & Why - Did they do that?

In the 1980s the school trustees decided to sell off the Kingham Hill School farm and gardens. For the previous ninety-four years the school had been self-sufficient.

In 2006 the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) launched their Sustainable Schools Framework. The then Secretary of State for Education set out the challenging long-term aspirations: for schools to mainstream learning about sustainable development issues and sustainable practices into everyday school life.

In simple terms: By 2020, the Government would like all schools to be offering and promoting healthy, local and sustainable food and drink, produced on site (where possible), with strong commitments to the environment, social responsibility and animal welfare, and with increased opportunity to involve local on site participation.

So in reality the school had to go back to what it was doing some twenty-six years previously to achieve this. This prompted six former pupils to come up with this project now:

All of these boys attended the school in the late 1950s and the early 1960s when both of the farms and walled garden played an integral part of school life, providing all the milk, eggs, fruit and vegetables that the school produced as meals in the central dining hall.

These boys have donated funds to enable a polytunnel to be purchased for the sole purpose of growing vegetables, sustainable food and produced on site. Also to provide a venue for some structured horticulture lessons to any young people who are interested in learning about growing their own vegetables.

Having had the proposal for this project “Back to the Future Dig for Victory” approved by Nick Seward - who also stipulated that due to the financial constraints that the school are currently undergoing there should be no capital cost to the school whatsoever - the capital sum was raised by donations from former pupils to cover the costs of this project.

In December with cash in the bank the order was placed with Citadel Polytunnels.

The component parts arrived in January this year, but due to the severe winter we had to wait until the end of February before the actual frame could be erected. This was done in the main by our own ground's staff, hindered by one of the old boys who was involved with our project.

Our "A Team" in action. March 2010

Waiting for the day of days. Again due to the weather, avoiding all the snow and waiting for a dry day with no prevailing winds we had to wait until March before the cover could go on the frame.

March: Progress well underway now and the weather was kind.

A polytunnel is usually a metal tube construction (conventionally cylindrical-shaped) that is covered in durable polythene with ultraviolet inhibitors.  As a structure it provides an enhanced growing environment for plants, flowers, fruit and vegetables.   An ideal growing environment is achieved by allowing enormous light diffusion and distribution into the growing area. A large volume of air is also retained in the tunnel which stays warmer for longer.  In fact, the heat retention and light diffusion properties of the polytunnel are reputed to be far better than the greenhouse. In some cases, products that would normally be shipped in from countries miles and miles away can be grown locally.  A well appointed polytunnel can therefore play its part in reducing the world's carbon footprint.  The cost to grow is far lower than the cost to buy, and also since produced on site it is sustainable in keeping with the DCSF sustainable Schools Framework .... and prior to 2020!

Polytunnels are easy to construct.  The additional advantage is that they can be moved and relocated relatively easily unlike greenhouses that rely on a fixed foundation. The polytunnel environment offers protection for crops and plants against unpredictable and poor weather conditions.  So all year round gardening is possible where spring crops can be harvested earlier and late season crops can be prolonged later.

Now we had to wait and hope that the weather did not change, nor the wind blow a gale as we might have been off to Little Rissington to retrieve the fifty foot by thirty foot polythene Polytunnel cover.

It was thanks to Mr. Neil Stannard, the Norwich Housemaster, who had arranged for a team of seven sixth form pupils to come and help us cover the frame with this durable polythene. We certainly did need and appreciated their assistance. Very much like the projects us boys from the 1960s used to get involved with, working in the school gardens or on the farm.

Looks easy, but we had to pay attention to get it right!!

A bit tricky - trimming polythene to the right size.

It's taking shape.

For the gardening enthusiast, or “grow-your-own” protagonist, the polytunnel will offer a protected and comfortable environment for growing and promoting healthy, local and sustainable food, produced on site for both staff and pupils using the schools dinning hall.

An enjoyable day was had by all. We will keep you posted now with all further developments with this project.

The Historian. March 2010.

The majority of the photos were provided by courtesy of Ken Wingfield MBE (Norwich House 1959 - 1962).

Just as we were finishing this article for publication we received this information from Hans Leistina - one of the Jewish Boys from Vienna who fled to KHS in 1939 from the Nazis:

Administrative history

"Norman Snell was the Farm Manager of Hill Farm, Kingham, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire and Hill Farm, Daylesford, Gloucestershire, responsible for 800 acres of land. The Kingham Hill Trust, a charitable organisation, owned the farms and profits went to the school founded by the Christian philanthropist Charles Baring Young. The farms had originally formed part of his estate. The farms were sold in 1980. Norman Snell was born in 1915 and attended Cambridge University, studying agriculture and gaining an MA & Dip Agric Cantab. He managed the farms from 1947 to his retirement in 1980, and continued to manage Hill Farm, Daylesford for another 10 years after that."

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KHS Kitchen Garden

By 2020 the government would like all schools' buildings and grounds to be regarded as living, learning places where pupils see what a sustainable lifestyle means through their involvement in the continual improvement of the school estate.

By 2020, the Government would like all schools to be offering and promoting healthy, local and sustainable food and drink, produced on site (where possible), with strong commitments to the environment, social responsibility and animal welfare, and with increased opportunity to involve local  suppliers.*

Members of the newly formed Gardening Club at Kingham Hill School are being given the opportunity to grow their own produce on site. A core feature of the Gardens Development project is the creation of a kitchen garden where pupils have been constructing and filling raised beds in which they are growing a variety of crops. Miss Parmenter, the Gardens Supervisor, says, "The extensive school grounds are a wonderful resource and it would be fantastic if we could once again be self-sufficient at Kingham Hill School. In the meantime, each plateful of salad leaves we are eating in the school dining hall is a step in the right direction and the pupils are learning valuable skills along the way".

KHS Garden Supervisor Sophie Parmenter

Over the next year the project will involve: restoration of a reclaimed shed, completion of the kitchen garden raised beds, preliminary planting of some new garden areas and the chance for pupils to develop multifarious skills such as hedge-laying, plant identification, propagation, composting and cultivation techniques.

We also hope to develop links with the Young Enterprise initiative and with classroom subjects (particularly Biology and Environmental & Land-Based Science) and will also offer gardening as a 'Service' option in the new activities programme.

*Learning through Landscapes 'Sustainable School Grounds' Groundnotes January 2007

KHS Garden Supervisor Sophie Parmenter in the kitchen garden.