The Oakworth Village Society - Information about us

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GEO Club
Oakworth Primary School

GEO stands for:

Gardening and the
Environment of
Oakworth

Click the above logo to to visit the
Oakworth Primary School website
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The GEO Club is always needing plants for the whole year round . We especially would like more in season flowers to keep the school looking bright and cheerful, this keeps the children interested in planting. We are now looking to plant out for Spring/Summer and if the people and parents of Oakworth would like to donate plants etc, or indeed help in any way, we would be very grateful.
Thank you.
Kevin Hutchinson (site manager)
Please contact me through the school reception office

Oakworth Village was recently designated an Urban Village, with the main focus of the Initiative to develop a strong sense of Community Pride through the involvement of local people in direct action.

Partnerships between the school and other active groups were successful in engaging young and old in genuine cross generational activity (i.e. Memories of Oakworth Park brought young and old together to discuss personal views of the local park). The emphasis on the park is important as, through this project we hope to encourage a sense of pride in the young people which will result in less anti social behaviour in the future. Generally, we hope a better understanding of the environment and the potential for resident participation in practical action and policy making will go some way in developing community pride.

We would like to continue the work of the UV initiative primarily through gardening activities, leading to the further development of partnerships (with an environmental theme) within the village with the aim of:-

Promoting a healthy lifestyle
Widening the experiences of young people
Developing awareness of the local (and global) environment
Promoting a positive image of Young People

This will be achieved through a weekly gardening club (during term time) managed by Kevin Hutchinson the school site manager and parents/ guardians. This will include guests promoting wider environmental theme- residents active within the local community, horticultural, arboricultural and ecological experts. If the project proves popular we would like to expand activities within the school holidays.

Events held in 2007: Twenty weekly 'Gardening Club' sessions within the School Grounds

Healthy Lifestyles

Good School Gardens Steve Thorpe/ BMDC Gardener - three sessions
“A Touchy Feely Garden” Urban Classroom - three sessions
General Gardening - five sessions in school grounds

Widening Experiences

Village Society Handbook Janet Armstrong/ Secretary
Composting & Allotments Lee Senior/ Keighley Town Council
Summer House Display Shaun O’Hare/ Friends of Oakworth (Holden) Park
Field Trip Woodville Work Activity Centre

Developing Awareness

Trees and Bats Ian Butterfield
Recycling: Badges Judy Connor
Recycling: Purses Judy Connor

Promoting a Positive Image

Oakworth Park/ Village- Complete at least one practical environmental project
Oakworth Village- Identify potential environmental projects

The GEO Club will link with existing active groups in the village:-

Friends of Oakworth (Holden) Park - (Supported Shaun O’Hare)
Pupils will work with some of the friend’s volunteers known to the school in developing ideas for the Parks Master plan (being collated by BMDC Parks Technical services). They will also have a practical input, growing bedding plants for the park entrance and allocating sessions to small scale improvements within the park. This should hopefully result in a sense of pride and ownership which has been missing in previous years and has led to the misuse of the park by young people.

Oakworth Village Society - (Supported Janet Armstrong)
Pupils will learn about the role of the Village Society and then undertake some small scale practical help for the benefit of the wider community i.e. growing on plants for displays for the galas and Christmas fares/ producing hanging baskets or “adopting” prominent patches of the land in the village, identified by the society members for improvement.

Parental Involvement (Supported by Kevin Hutchinson)
A very informal school gardening club has been running on an ad-hoc basis for a few months. The school have secured donations in kind (plants/ planters/ mulch) from individuals and business totaling over £300. Its success has relied on parental involvement. We propose to formalise this and encourage greater participation focusing on the school grounds.

Keighley Allotments - (Supported by Lee Senior)
Pupils will learn about the benefits of allotment gardens and work with the Allotments officer in raising awareness about the need and feasibility of improving a large derelict allotment garden near the school.

The project will improve the local environment:-

By using resources within school to promote healthy living through gardening activities
By raising awareness of environmental problems; poor routes to school, grot spots etc.
By linking curricular studies on Oakworth Park (History/ Geography use the park as a resource) with practical projects for the children who will hopefully respect the park more than their peers.
By establishing better cross generational links with active groups within the village.
By working in partnership with delivery agents in the private, public and voluntary sector to influence the landscape of the urban village for the better i.e. identifying areas which could be planted as part of the Forest of Bradford Project or identifying places which could be improved i.e. Expanding on safer routes to schools

…and the lessons we will learn by doing this?

If the school activity can influence development and enhancement of the immediate environment
What activities stimulate the pupils into learning about environmental issues
What environmental issues the pupils feel are important/ relevant to them

The long-term benefits will be…

Widening of social circles
Developing Community Pride
Raising Environmental issues in a fun environment
Enhancing the school grounds, the park and the village.
Progress. Building interest and commitment from Parents and Partners to allow the club to sustain itself and develop projects with much wider community engagement
BUT we need greater input and more structure to our gardening club which could be achieved with the help of this grant. As ultimately we would like to extend the project to have an influence on environmental improvements throughout the village.

Some pictures of the work done in the playground at Oakworth Primary School In the general gardening sessions -part of the GEO Club, the children and parent volunteers are creating the new school garden. C R Taylor (Timber) Limited of Denholme supplied the Tanalised timber for the fencing and path edging at a discount and Dave Walbank from Keighley Tree Services has donated free of charge, materials which will be used to create an outdoor seating area. See below for pictures of the completed garden (Click on any picture to view a larger version in a new window)

November 2007: Shaun O'Hare representing the Friends of Holden Park led a visit to the park, with year 5 pupils, the children were asked to identify areas for improvement and ideas for using the park. Looked at BMDC Master Plan for Holden Park Looked at new display boards funded by the Local Heritage Initiative

Visit to the park: Disgusted about vandalism to Summerhouse (this was the most discussed topic) Some had seen youths abusing the park on YouTube and thought they were just silly...even sillier to shout their own names...Mr Hutchinson has told the Police about them Thought the graffiti on the fountain was awful and would like to see the fountain working especially if you could drink the water

Paths: Brilliant! But there was already litter- litter bins and signs saying "Love our Park" should be put up The men putting the steps in were SO clever and brilliant! Some signs like the ones at St. Ives would be good to tell people about the park and the animals that live there Some signs to tell people about the great great people in Oakworth who help look after the park- feeding the birds/ picking up the litter/ telling the police about bad things happening Woods: Lets plant some more trees and make some statues hiding behind trees


Youth Shelter: It would be OK if it was painted again, its like a bandstand...the naughty words are just silly, why do some people do this? Lets have speakers in it that play music like a bandstand...it would make people laugh

Tennis courts: We need a better surface, better seats...where can you play games properly in Oakworth.....that's what a park is for! The fence is really dangerous....do the people who look after the park not care about us?

Playground: Its OK but other parks are better...we always drive to other parks, Mum and Dad wouldn't bring us here. Doing stuff..... Could we (the school pupils) sell coffee one time in the park to our Mums and Dads and the money we make could help Mr. Hutchinson and Shaun do work in the garden and the park Entrance: Lots of people don't know its here, could the statues hold a light or a lantern one time to make people look at the park?

Some pictures of the completed garden at Oakworth Primary School (Click on any picture to view a larger version in a new window)


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