Lantern Parade

On the 11th of November 2019, families gathered at The Children’s Allotment to take part in our first lantern parade, to celebrate the seasonal time of the growing darkness.

Children brought home-made paper lanterns which were lit from within by candles. We learned songs around the fire and then processed around the local area singing and carrying the lanterns.

Then everyone came back to The Children’s Allotment to warm themselves by the fire with soup and home-made apple cake.


Celebrating our harvest

On the 6th of October 2019, we hosted a harvest event for families to celebrate the fruits of our labour.

We grew loads of pumpkins in the summer and so made a huge pot of pumpkin soup. We also pressed juice from apples from our own orchard – the children loved the taste of fresh juice!

We had fun telling stories and singing songs around the fire and we even had a few musicians show up with their instruments!


Our achievements so far

From the time we finally got the keys to The Children’s Allotment site in March 2018, we achieved so much! In our first year we held:

  • 18 workdays to clear and renovate the site, which were each attended by volunteers from the local community with 210 attendances over the year, with a total contribution of 520 volunteer hours.
  • 3 corporate volunteer workdays, through which we hosted 27 volunteers from HSBC, Brookes University and Pearsons to donate 91 volunteer hours on the site.
  • 11 discussion group events where attendees were able to discuss alternative educational and childcare pedagogies and approaches. They were attended by around 10 adults on average for each event. 
  • 4 film showings to watch documentaries about alternative education pedagogies, which attracted interested parents and educators, with 36 attendances in total.
  • 4 workshops hosted by an expert facilitators covering a specific aspect of alternative education such as Steiner or democratic pedagogies, which attracted interested parents and educators, with 102 attendances in total. 
  • 7 Forest School / Outdoor play drop in sessions attended by local families with 77 attendances from adults and 76 from children
  • 2 open information events and 1 social event attended by around 24 adults in total.

A huge thank you to all the volunteers and attendees for an amazing year!