Education

Sowing the seeds for the next generation of landscapers

When is too early to start the conversation about careers with children? Probably never. Children imitate what they see around them in their play, especially in what they see mum, dad and grandparents doing. You may have already seen them role playing an aspect of what you do in landscaping with friends or toys, after all, we often see children playing at being doctors, police and in the fire service, but what about those children that are unaware of the landscape industry?

Landscape companies have always found it challenging to find new staff, and this became more difficult over the pandemic with the number of projects on the rise. Encouraging fresh talent into the landscape industry has always been one of the key goals for GoLandscape. As I have said before, we can only circulate existing employees within the industry for so long - we need to bring in new people to train and nurture through the ranks if we have any chance of addressing our skills shortage. We can do this by focusing on three major groups: the school and college leavers, and career changers.

Who am I?

GoLandscape has successfully been working with and promoting the landscape industry in secondary schools for the last few years. We have now turned our attention to include primary schools in our campaign. The purpose of school and education is to prepare young people for life and work, so learning should be linked to the real world. This can support motivation, hard work, teamwork and broaden aspirations, as well as beginning the process of appreciating the world of work. Whilst the children at primary school level are a very different audience and we have had to adapt the way in which we deliver the message, they are still a vital audience to engage to help support our skills gap further down the line.

Most teachers believe children should be learning about the world of work and different jobs in their first years of primary school. • Nearly half (47%) believe this should start from age 5 and under. • A further 21% believe this should start from age 5 – 7 in year 1 and 2. Talking and demonstrating careers from this earlier an age can be integral to the overall understanding of the pupil’s self (‘who am I?’) and opportunity of awareness (‘what does the world of work look like?’).

“Ignoring the process of career development occurring in childhood is similar to a gardener disregarding the quality of the soil in which a garden will be planted”. (Niles, S. G., and Harris-Bowlsbey, J).

Launch of #GOSchoolSuccess in primary schools

Therefore, we have now extended the GoLandscape campaign to primary schools as well. We have teamed up with Lee Connelly (aka, the Skinny Jean Gardener) to support his campaign to bring horticulture skills and knowledge through a dedicated package (#GOSchoolSuccess) that supplies primary school teachers with everything they need to deliver a range of horticulture themed lessons over a year. This includes a dedicated 12-month curriculum and all the lessons and materials they need to take them through the activities. GoLandscape has added to the package a range of materials and activities designed to help teachers talk about the careers linked to the lessons and sow the seeds for a future generation to find a career in our exciting and rewarding industry. We are asking Association members to support this initiative by sponsoring a package(s) in their local primary school(s). By sponsoring a package, it means that you are directly supporting a local school that maybe your own children, grandchildren or employee’s children attend, that will teach pupils horticulture skills as well as raising awareness of the careers in our industry. We would love to support getting #GOSchoolSuccess packages into every primary school by 2025, which will give over 30,000 primary schools and 1 million children a start to gardening and chance to learn about careers in horticulture. This could have the potential for a whole new generation to join our industry in the future! You will also be able to promote that you are a #GOSchoolSuccess ambassador with a badge on your website and social media. The more schools you sponsor, the bigger the rewards and recognition to promoting our industry and the careers available. To sponsor a school class, please visit skinnyjeangardner.co.uk/

goschoolsuccess

And we’re not stopping here. To support this we are also adding a new primary school’s section to our GoLandscape website that will have links to the #GOSchoolSuccess campaign and will also host a series of videos aimed at primary schools that explore our industry, as well as activities and information to support primary schools over the next few months. We are also adding to the ask of our GoLandscape ambassadors, to see if they would be willing to attend primary schools to promote the industry at events by running activities with the teachers and pupils. If you are not an ambassador and would like to become one, please get in touch with Stephen Ensell stephen.ensell@bali.org.uk for more information.

golandscape.co.uk

We would love to support getting #GOSchoolSuccess packages into every primary school

by 2025

Written by Stephen Ensell

Education Officer (GoLandscape)