Stewart Garden, part of the Global Keter Group, is pleased to announce

that St Mark’s Church of England Junior School, Gloucestershire, has won

its Schools Programme 2018 competition.

The annual contest, which was set up to reward the gardening skills and

creativity of schoolchildren aged between six and eleven across the UK,

was very tough this year. However, the Cheltenham-based school came out

on top, securing themselves a prize of £1,000 to spend at their local

garden centre.

Stewart Garden set up the Schools Programme to get more children

interested in gardening, providing participating schools with a special

kit that they can use to set up a gardening project of their choice.

Every year, these results are submitted to a discerning panel of judges,

who award the lucky winners with the prize money to support them in

future projects.

There were also three runner-up gardening vouchers of £100 up for grabs

this year, which went to Cecil Road Primary School in Kent, Friar’s

Grove Primary School in Essex, and Hampreston First School in Dorset.

One of the people who had the difficult task of deciding on the winner

and runners-up was award-winning garden writer, photographer and

lecturer Val Bourne, whose impressive list of publications include The

Daily Telegraph.

Val said: “Firstly, congratulations to all of the finalists. They made

full use of Stewart Garden’s materials and obviously enjoyed themselves.

“It was incredibly hard to choose a winner because there were two

schools that shone. I’d particularly like to commend runner-up Cecil

Road School, as their children showed such enthusiasm and learnt lots

from the project. Their scientific conclusions were spot on!

“The St Mark’s Church of England Junior School kids were also very

impressive and very independent. They took complete control of their

project and are even planning a cookery club.”