Wilkins Green wins NAB community partnership award

Wilkins Public School wins 2012 NAB Schools First Impact Award for their outstanding school-community partnership with Petersham TAFE Outreach.  The school will be awarded $30,000 at the  National event held in Melbourne on the 7 November 2012. The award winning Wilkins Public School program has developed a partnership with Petersham TAFE over the past eight years to develop a large community garden and Aboriginal Learning Pathway Walanga'naminina. Students from preschool to Year 6 use and contribute to a sustainable garden. The TAFE's Outreach program runs courses for adult education in the environment, bush regeneration and permaculture.
The partnership with Petersham TAFE was instrumental in creating the garden and Walanga'naimina at the school. TAFE's successful application through Envirofund, for the establishment of an Aboriginal food, fibre and medicinal trail also enabled the school to add this component to the gardens. The school teachers currently use the trail and the bush tucker garden as part of their curriculum and the Marrickville Council nursery harvests seeds of endemic species for propagation.
Parents and carers at the school have opportunities to visit the garden and do so during school hours, after hours and on weekend garden days. TAFE Adult learners use the site for Urban Food Growing, Sustainable Living and Bush Regeneration classes. Wilkins Public School operates a weekly stall selling produce from the garden, which always sells out as parents enjoy the home grown food and share it with their extended families.
Recently a group of TAFE Outreach Community Construction students built a deck alongside the tool shed - a shipping container with a veranda that harvests rain water.
The NAB prize will go toward developing more courses with TAFE for Walanga'naimina and other aspects of the site for more crossover learning by the primary students. A water tank to harvest water form the Water Board buildings on an adjacent site and a more formal outdoor learning space.

Growing Pathways

TAFE Outreach applies innovative approaches to teaching the  enhancement of community and personal environments with gardens for biodiversity, food production, sensory exploration and sustainable living in inner and outer Sydney. Based in the community our multi-agency programs engage women in hands on activity and provide opportunities to learn in a cooperative and supportive environment leading to harvesting, making and sharing food and developing networks and pathways to further learning. This teaching model relies on sound partnerships, resource sharing and responsiveness to students in the face of heightening pressures of obligations for students and the dominant paradigm of skilling workforces for economic growth. Resisting these pressures and providing a safe and inspiring place to learn leads to wellbeing, changed perceptions of personal and community capacity, goal setting and enriched learning.
Jude Cooke and Tric Kenny - Outreach Co-ordinators, TAFE NSW