Owairaka District School

113-115 Richardson Rd

Mt Albert

Auckland

Wednesday 16th May

Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern

Office of the Chief Executive

Level 8 Executive Wing

Parliament Buildings

Wellington

Prime Minister,

We would like to tell you about a program called Garden to Table that we have at Owairaka District School. Owairaka is a great place to learn, its in Mt Albert, Auckland.

Firstly we would like to explain that garden to table is an educational program that helps people learn how to cook and garden. We harvest delicious and healthy veggies from the school garden and use them to cook tasty food with.  It's also culturally aware. Last time we had turkish food and before that sushi because we have student from those countries in our classroom.

Every week the groups swap over positions so one week you cook and one week you garden. When we cook we measure carefully like the right amount of sugar and the right amount of milk. If you don’t the recipes won’t work. We also have these things called Knife licenses and if you have one it means you can use the knife properly. We also get help from adults or parent volunteers who give up their time own time to help us learn to cook.

In the garden we harvest and fruit or veggies to use in the kitchen and use our math skills to plant seedlings at the right amount of depth. We have learnt about composting and how a worm farm works. We have a really big one at school. We also check in on our Chickens and bees to make sure that they are healthy and in tip top condition.

We think that the Garden to Table program help us learn to take initiative, teach us life skills so we can help around the house and makes learning reading and maths fun (and tasty). We think you should come and visit so you can see for yourself how amazing this Garden to Table program is and hopefully your Government will help other school have this opportunity.  

Yours sincerely,

Tana, Ben and Questyn