On Monday morning, Year 5 had a talk from TimeGivers, then the girls visited the Thrive Gardens in Battersea Park to carry out some volunteering.
“The second I stepped into the garden I was bombarded with all the different colours of the plants; blue, pink, red, purple, you name it they had it! We were making our way to the table where we were enlightened with information about Thrive Gardens and we learned so many things! We all put on very comfy bright gloves. After that we headed to the shed where we all got our rakes, picker-uppers, buckets and shovels. Then we got onto the volunteering.
So many leaves that had to be put into piles. I was so happy and excited to help out! Everybody was laughing and having fun. We were all trying to make the biggest pile! We were all swapping jobs from rakers, to scoopers, etc. Then all the fun was coming to an end and we had to finish up. The fun never really ended though because we still had to put everything away and walk back to school. Even the walk was fun! We crossed over the bridge while talking to our partners.” Aliya, Year 5
“Before we left, I put my bag on and got ready for the journey. The walk felt like it took forever! When we finally got there I sighed with relief. The red complimented the orange in the leaves. Alex made us feel welcome and I felt ready to tackle raking the leaves. We worked as a team to clear the leaves so the leaves could grow without the leaves getting in the way. We learnt that after we put the leaves in the bag they’ll turn the leaves into compost. We got the equipment we needed and got to work. After a while, Mr Trueman came up to us and told us that we wouldn’t get lunch if we didn’t clear all the leaves! We started to quicken our pace hoping we would finish in time. The volunteering took an hour, but since we were having a blast it felt like only a couple of minutes.” Megumi, Year 5
“Today we went on a trip to Battersea Park to do a volunteering workshop for the charity ‘TimeGivers’. For the activity we went to Thrive Gardens. It was very exciting wondering what we were doing. After all we were only told that we were going gardening! In the morning we had a talk about ‘TimeGivers’ and what they do. We filled out some worksheets and shared some of our answers with the class. After the talk we rushed to our classrooms eager to go on our journey.
We went on a never-ending walk and as we thought we couldn’t walk any further we finally reached Thrive Gardens! When we arrived we got given a talk about what they do. After the talk we had only six minutes to have our snacks! We were raking the leaves which was difficult because the ground was covered with them. It was an arduous task but with teamwork we did it! We were so proud of the result! It was a delightful trip and I am so grateful for this opportunity. I hope we get to go again.” Yasmine, Year 5
