Rathkenny school's 'outdoor classroom' gets top marks

St Louis National School, Rathkenny, has won a major national award for its school garden. The two-teacher school is the overall national winner of the Corrin Hill Biodiversity School Garden Of The Year 2009. The prize is €500 to spend on the school garden, a magnificent award trophy and a Corrin Hill Ice Cream Party for the schoolchildren. "It was terrific to become a finalist in late August," said principal, Miriam Coogan, "but it was magical to hear we had won on national radio on Monday. All the pupils jumped for joy when they were told that we had the best Biodiversity School Garden in Ireland. It is quite an achievement and the reality is only starting to sink in," she said. This is the school's fourth garden award. It won the Best New Garden in 2007 and second overall in 2008, both in Meath Pride of Place competition, and in June of this year, the school was awarded Best Biodiversity Wildlife School Garden in the Meath Pride of Place competition. The Rathkenny School garden is a linear garden with many areas of specialisation, including a nature trail, woodland, a tree and willow nursery, a rock pool (which had its own tadpoles and frogs this year), an orchard, an organic herb, fruit and vegetable garden, various composting areas for grass, food and leaves, a wormery and several water butts. It also includes a new glasshouse where the children grow tomatoes from seed, cucumbers, aubergines and courgettes; wild flower and grass meadows; several lodges and houses for bees, butterflies, ladybirds and hedgehogs as well as many nesting boxes for robins, tits, blackbirds, owls and bats. The children plant tubs and window boxes with flowers all year round. "Our garden has been described as a stunning mini-nature reserve and we have exciting plans to continue and extend the garden in 2010," said Ms Coogan. The garden is a 'learning garden', where staff and pupils work with nature instead of trying to master it. Among the huge variety of wildlife who visit and live in the garden are rabbits who never eat or interfere with their plants. Ms Coogan says the garden supports many areas of the curriculum and they view it as their 'outdoor classroom'. "The learning that happens here is deep and profound and our pupils are transformed by the secrets of nature that they uncover in this God-given wonderfully wild natural place, which they have created, in partnership with their parents and teachers," she added. Pupils from the school had five poems published in a poetry book called Nature In Poetry, which was a poetry competition run by Navan Education Centre last April, proving the overall impact and value of the garden. Many of the children have been so motivated by the school garden, they now have their own simple gardens at home where they grow fruit, vegetable and herbs. In just under three years, the Rathkenny school has two Green Flags and is working on a third. They also have an interactive whiteboard in each classroom, a new all-weather pitch and ongoing big plans for further development and extension of ICT (Information and Communications Technology) at each class level. Ms Coogan extended a huge thanks to parents and the community for their help this far.