The Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program provides opportunities for students to explore pleasurable food education in real life contexts. Throughout the semester students engage in learning fundamental skills in gardening and planting to grow and harvest fresh produce to be used to nourish their bodies. Students are equipped with appropriate safety techniques and procedures to use when in the kitchen preparing food. They learn how to choose the correct tools to use in the garden to prepare garden beds, clear crops and maintain optimal growing conditions for plants. Students delve into the research behind companion planting, soil testing and seed saving to optimise growth and production. In the kitchen students learn about basic cooking techniques, knife safety and flavour combinations to create delicious dishes they can enjoy with their families. They also learn correct table setting procedures and restaurant etiquette.

History of the program at SPS

The garden was first established in 2018 When De’arne had her first son in grade one. She found the abandoned veggie garden at the back of the school with a few fruit trees and overgrown weeds. She approached the then principal Amanda Busuttil to develop the garden space. The school applied for the initial startup grant from the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation and received $5000 to establish the garden and set up a mobile kitchen for students to access during their recess and lunch time. She worked closely with another grandparent volunteer Colin Duffy to create the garden space. Students became garden warriors – sign up with only 30 students at a time to spend time in the garden with Dee and Colin during lunch and recess breaks. The interest and demand from the school community grew so quickly that Amanda decided in order to keep up with demand a curriculum program needed to be established. The specialist timetable was created to share a semester of STEM for students and a semester of SAKG allowing the whole school time in the kitchen and garden program. This unfortunately coincided with the covid years so the program didn’t become a part of the regular curriculum until 2022 with Sarah Clinch as the teacher and Tracy Carboon and De’arne Houston as the supporting ES roles in the kitchen and the garden. I stepped into the teacher role in 2023 and hit the ground running with establishing vital skills such as recipe reading/interpreting and knife skills. The Garden was well established by then with chickens, and rostered jobs and students were beginning to explore recipes. The program now is developed around seasonal produce – if we aren’t growing it in the patch we aren’t using it. This enables students to understand the impact of a food foodprint, seasonal produce and taste development/comparison with fresh vegetables – organically grown by them.