Good Thymes Gardening

Emotional and Mental Wellbeing support for all:

At LPS we strive to provide a holistic structure for understanding health and well-being. It forms part of our School Improvement Plan as we believe that a whole-school approach will enable health and well-being to permeate through all aspects of school life.

It is our aim to develop the capacity of our learners to navigate life's opportunities and challenges. The fundamental components of this support are physical health and development, mental health, and emotional and social well-being. It will support learners to understand and appreciate how the different components of health and well-being are interconnected, and it recognises that good health and well-being are important to enable successful learning.

Working closely with the Good Thymes Gardening Team has provided a structure to support the whole school community by:

supporting curriculum development
undertaking outdoor hands-on learning experiences
providing focused well-being sessions for learners
providing staff and the LPS community access well-being activities
supporting community ownership over outdoor developments
enhancing extra-curricular activities

Good Thymes Gardening Sessions are organised as follows:

focused learning experiences linked to LPS Learning Projects
group well-being sessions
wraparound sessions after school
staff and parent sessions (phase 2)

Llangyfelach pupils have welcomed the Good Thymes Gardening team and have fully embraced their muddy mindfulness. Each week our Year 2s, wellbeing groups and after-school gardening club have been exploring a variety of gardening and nature-based activities, but it is unanimous, hunting for worms is the favourite! "The worm composter is smelly, but I like the worms."

One particularly passionate Yr2 pupil has sown an entire bed of wildflowers which we’ve all been carefully watering and watching together as the little shoots burst from their seeds. "I feel so happy seeing my plants growing. My friends helped water them for me when I wasn't feeling well".

It is a joy to support the pupils in building positive relationships with the outdoors and wildlife, even the teaching assistants have held their first worms and learnt all about their important role in composting. Pupils have been supported through initial hesitations to touch soil with bare hands and are now our top muddy buddies and seed sowers! Interacting with the soil alone has provided sensory stimulation, mindful gardening and a serotonin release from the interaction with the soil (a feel good hormone that can create feelings of happiness). Our muddy buddies are growing wildflowers, pollinator loving plants and edibles.

Sophie Lacey

Good Thymes Gardening

Founder