The opening of the Garden Room at Hackney School of Food earlier this year means children and community can enjoy even more inspiring seed-to-table experiences
There’s something magical about Hackney School of Food – a growth mindset in its most literal form. Tucked away in one of the most densely populated quarters of London behind high brick walls, it’s a lush oasis centred on the pleasures of growing, tending, cooking and eating.
There’s the School of Food, a kitchen where groups of children turn chef for the day and then dine together. There’s the beautiful garden full of colourful ornamentals and an impressive range of edibles. And now there’s the Garden Room, bringing education about food and growing together in one light-filled space. In an era characterised by a doom loop approach to health education, this shows how to make such lessons life-affirming, inspiring and fun.
The Hackney School of Food started out in 2020 and sits on the same Oswald Street, Clapton site as Mandeville Primary School. Both school and cookery school are part of LEAP, a federation of three Hackney primary schools, and Hackney School of Food is run as a community interest company (CIC). This means it has a strong remit to reach out to local residents in an area underserved by green spaces and facing issues such as poverty, food poverty and obesity.
While not for profit, it opens its doors to the wider community through programmes and courses – to date over 7,000 children from nearly 60 schools from across London and beyond have visited the School of Food. Everyone benefits, but for the children of Mandeville Primary, this is their place – visible from the playground and accessible for all sorts of activities.
“Shelter provided by the warm brick walls creates a microclimate perfect for wall-trained and freestanding fruit trees”
The Garden Room is a high-ceilinged and flexible teaching and meeting space with views over well-used playground on one side and green and verdant plot on the other. The garden is a miracle of inspired design and careful planting (Head Gardener Lidka D’Agostino certainly knows her stuff). There’s no corner here wasted but still a feeling of space to roam. All the more surprising when you learn that this was once a rather wasted area of playground – rarely used due to frequent waterlogging, says Mandeville School Headteacher Marc Thompson.
As a growing zone, it’s perfect. Shelter provided by the warm brick walls and ring of buildings beyond create a microclimate perfect for wall-trained and freestanding fruit trees and bushes – choice rarities such as jostaberry and medlar among them. Tomatoes can climb and ripen on the vine in this sheltered spot, while salad comestibles and herbs enjoy optimal care in the raised beds, having been nurtured from seed in the highly productive greenhouse. Happy chickens roam and help to keep the pests in check (although there is a bug hotel for the overwintering good doers). There’s even a beehive under expert management by local volunteers.
Everything in this space is child-centric, including the raised beds at child height, and the process of growing from seed – taught in the Garden Room and garden itself –continues on to tasting at the table. Young children tend to be suspicious about anything unfamiliar put on their plate by adults, but give them the opportunity to savour the differences between sweet, savoury and bitter by sampling a morsel from the garden then learning the name of the plant and they become more receptive. And if they’ve grown something from seed themselves or seen it flourish in the garden, children become way more inclined to give eating it a go.
Head Food Educator Tom Walker and team carry this adventurous growth mindset from the garden and Garden Room through to the School of Food. Here, the rituals of preparing and cooking something delicious together and then sitting down as a group to feast nurtures positive attitudes to food, and to the pleasures of social time around a table.
The hub this has become for the community beyond the school gates can be seen in the activities programme. From seasonal sushi and breadmaking sessions through to masterclasses in container growing and compost making, it all happens here. Hackney School of Food also welcomes private and corporate bookings – and what a great space this is for an away-day with a difference.
Children remain at the heart, and young people across Hackney and far beyond can enjoy a fruitful half or full day in the kitchen and garden. Cooking classes cover everything from basic nutrition and safe knife skills to eating with the seasons. In the garden and Garden Room, they find out how to grow and tend, discover more about pollination and insects, learn about soil composition and improvement and consider really big questions – food miles and reducing the environmental impact of what we consume included.
These are lessons that, hopefully, will shape positive lifelong habits and enjoyment of growing and eating. Mandeville and other schools within LEAP can testify to the difference it makes to the children right now. “They have a better understanding of planting, food production and natural life cycles as a result of this rich experience. We see the difference every day,” says Mandeville’s Marc Thompson.
Hackney School of Food came about thanks to support at local council and London-wide level, and with extra funding from some generous charitable trusts. And it has influential champions in the wider world of food – Chefs in Schools and Sainsbury’s among them. Bringing the idea from seed to fruition was a triumph. Let’s hope it becomes a blueprint for other schemes, and for all that can be achieved when you create a space where children go on that journey from seed to fork – and enjoy the pleasure of fresh and nutritious food cooked and eaten together.
Hackney School of Food hackneyschooloffood.com
Photos: Pau Ros, Jim Stephenson
Further reading: Out to play – the campaign to help children play on the streets where they live
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