OVO Foundation Nature Prize
Inspirational projects that inspire climate action through a connection to nature.
For their chance of winning a prize of £1,000 or £200 schools that are signed up to Let’s Go Zero told us how they would bring their students closer to nature.
The winning projects involve tree planting, vegetable growing and supporting wildlife on the school grounds. Our judges looked for creative and engaging ideas with the power to inspire young people and the wider school community, with a focus on including less advantaged groups in underserved areas.
The competition is supported by The OVO Foundation and there were 25 chances to win: 10 prizes of £1000 and 15 prizes of £200.
Our 2024 Winners
Nature £1000 winners
Specialist SEMH provision, Adelaide School, are poised to transform an unused piece of land next to their school into a thriving wildlife garden for the local community. The land belongs to a local businessman, who has agreed to loan the space to the school for free. Despite delays with the contract, staff and students have ploughed ahead with preparations.
Students are eager to get going and have chosen to work on the space as part of their outdoor education sessions. At the moment, the site sits empty and unfortunately attracts a lot of rubbish and fly-tipping so the school’s first job will be to clear the area.
To support them with this, the school has been in contact with the local council who will send in police officers to do a sharp sweep before students are given access. Other local businesses and community members have also offered their help; a landscaper will deal with the overgrown trees and the local garage owner has offered to buy planters.
Residents of the street where the site is located are thrilled with news of the site’s upcoming transformation, even offering to look after the garden whilst students and staff are on holidays. There is no shortage of volunteers, including students, ready to get to work as soon as the contract is in place, showing great community spirit that will be essential to the garden’s success.
As part of its 40th birthday celebrations, Combs Ford Primary School, Suffolk is working with the local community to rewild the site and will use the prize money to buy equipment and plants to create resilient and diverse habitats for local wildlife. As part of a Multi Academy Trust, they hope to inspire their sister schools to follow suit and rewild their own sites.
Oasis Academy John Williams, Bristol is building an outdoor, multi-sensory site for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities students to take part in forest school activities, supporting student mental health and wellbeing. They will also develop a dedicated growing space, distributing fresh produce to vulnerable families and creating a space for the community to learn about healthy eating and skills for food growing.
Members of the student parliament at Beamont Collegiate Academy, Warrington are establishing a dedicated growing area and pond to enhance nature and biodiversity on the school site. Their new green spaces will provide hands-on learning experiences for students, and will help the school to foster a sustainable, biodiverse and inclusive learning environment.
Nature £200 winners
St Margaret’s CEVA Primary School won a £200 prize with their original idea to create a biodiversity boosting wildflower meadow on their school grounds. This project has brought together the whole school and the wider community, creating a vibrant outdoor learning area for children, teachers and parents.
Over the past few years, the school has been focused on increasing their onsite biodiversity and has been busy creating different wildlife habitats. Students were inspired to apply for the Nature Prize after doing an inventory of their grounds and looking at what types of habitats were missing. After deciding to create a wildflower meadow, students took soil samples to work out which wildflower seeds would work best on their site, prioritizing native species and locally produced seeds.
Students worked with local community group Yeovil Rivers Community Trust to prepare the wildflower meadow area. Members of Able to Achieve, another local organisation supporting individuals with learning disabilities, also came to help the students get the ground ready for the seeds. With the prize money, the school bought a native wildflower seed mix from Habitat Aid and students excitedly set about “seed-bombing” the field.
To celebrate their new wildflower meadow, the school hosted some Earth Day celebrations for the local community. Visitors got the chance to taste school-grown dandelion jam, make newspaper pots for growing sunflowers, create bug homes, and learn how to make their own seed-bombs to use at home. Information boards at each activity station provided tips and inspiration for everyone. Feedback from community members has been fantastic, with some parents reporting they’ve already set up wildflower patches in their own gardens.
This project has inspired St Margarets to jumpstart their climate action journey and include more learning on climate change in the curriculum, rather than focus just on outdoor learning. Their new meadow will be the subject of a biodiversity survey and students will be able to compare the difference between wildlife and fauna now, and before its creation.
“This project was easy to do but has had such a huge impact for the children, seeing their excitement, involvement and enthusiasm is so lovely to see. It’s been such a worthwhile project for the children’s education as well, learning about all the different soils, plants, flowers and insects and how they are impacting the climate.” –Mrs Anderton, Sustainability Lead
Students’ enthusiasm for the project has also spurred the school to apply for other initiatives, including Learning Through Landscapes’ Climate School 180, to keep up the momentum and support what they’ve done so far.
Kingswood Nursery School are passionate about outdoor play and encourage their students to be outside as much as possible. With their £200 Nature Prize, they have installed a willow dome in the playground, giving students a tranquil and shaded area to play and explore.
Five dedicated members of staff built the willow dome themselves. Since its installation, the willow has taken to its new environment and is thriving, growing new leaves which staff plan on weaving together to create shade inside the dome.
The willow dome is a popular spot for outdoor play, music and reading sessions. Its popularity with students ensures it will remain a key feature of the playground for years to come, helping to attract prospective parents and engage the nursery’s future students.
“Since the installation, our willow dome has become quite the feature of our garden; children, parents and staff all comment on it and are keen to explore inside! The dome is so open ended-the children love using it for picnics, a music space, experimenting with craft materials or just to seek a quiet place in the garden, where they lie back and stare at the sky.” –Ms Macdonald, Headteacher
With only a tarmac playground and no greenery, Ellacombe Academy in Torquay is on a mission to transform its space into a vibrant, green oasis. Funded by their Nature Prize win, the school has commissioned custom-built planters to provide seating and greenery, as well as areas for biodiversity to thrive.
As the school sits in a built-up area, and many of its students live in multiple occupancy housing, the planters form part of a larger project which aims to introduce the students to gardening, boost onsite biodiversity and wildlife, and foster nature connection.
The planters, designed by a local carpenter, double as benches and have been installed around the edge of the playground, creating a functional and fun place for students to sit and engage with nature. They plan to fill the planters with compost and a variety of seeds and flowers, and are excited to get students and their families involved in the planting process.
That’s the thing with gardening, once you start doing it, all kinds of people literally come out of the woodwork in terms of knowledge and skills. So, once we get going in September with the compost and the planting, hopefully we’ll get more of the community involved.”
Ms Helm, Headteacher
There are also plans to forge links with the local allotment group – Ms Helm, the headteacher, hopes students will be able to learn gardening skills from community members and improve their sense of connection and responsibility towards the local environment.
After seeing the RHS School Gardening Programme and the Skinny Jean Gardener at a conference and learning of the mental health benefits a school garden can bring, Lexden Primary School became committed to building one.
With the funds from the Nature Prize, they’ve bought raised beds, gardening equipment and a variety of seeds for each class to sow. They’re also repurposing an old tractor tyre from a nearby school, which will form the centre of the new garden, designed to echo the school’s logo – sunshine.
So far, the gardening club have grown seedlings, using one of the classrooms as a makeshift greenhouse, and will transfer them to the beds when ready. Students were also keen to make a wildflower meadow on the site to boost biodiversity and came up with the amazing idea of wildflower pinatas. They filled paper mâché balloons with wildflower seeds, tied them to trees and students set about whacking them, which proved an unsurprisingly popular activity.
Once the garden and raised beds are fully up and running, the idea is that students will take charge of maintaining the space. Each class will have a designated well-being slot in the garden, and at breaktimes, as part of the school’s OPAL (Outdoor Play and Learning) scheme, students will be encouraged to choose a garden job from the jobs board and get on with it themselves.
“After lockdown, something that we noticed was that the children in the school were struggling with social skills and their mental well-being. We felt that a school garden would basically be the next step in supporting the children.” – Ms. Jones, Gardening club lead
Whilst completing their annual Eco-Schools review, students at Banton Primary School found an area in the grounds that was disused and run down. After finding out about the Nature Prize from a parent who works at OVO, they made a plan to transform the space into a productive food growing area.
They used the money to buy planters, compost and seeds and have now successfully grown a variety of veg, including ginger, peas, carrots and potatoes. After the school holidays, they are planning a farm-to-table style cooking event, where students will help to harvest the vegetables and decide on the recipes for different types of soup each class will then cook. Parents and families will be invited in, and students will serve them a selection of soups, all made from food grown onsite.
The school’s student Green Team are the ones who take care of the day-to-day maintenance of the site, but students from every class got the chance to do some planting during a special planting day. Students have even started spending time in the garden during their breaktimes, using it as a quiet space where they can look at the plants.
“It’s also brought a bit of parental engagement – the parent council came and painted the planters for us. And then they’ve spotted other things they can do in the playground. So, on the back of them coming in to paint the planters, they’ve actually given us more and they’ve offered to do jobs that we would never have thought to ask.” – Mrs Rae, Principal teacher
Though the gardening club at Mortimer College has only been running for a short time, it’s quickly become a student favourite and is already having big impacts. Wanting to attract more wildlife onto the school site, students chose to spend their winnings on a variety of bug houses, bird feeders, hedgehog homes, saplings, compost and seeds.
Students in the gardening club have been avidly monitoring the wildlife coming into the grounds and have recorded an increase already. Wildlife they’ve seen includes foxes, rabbits, frogs, mice and even a shrew. Their bird feeders have also encouraged a family of birds that had previously nested on site to return to their old nest.
Hedgehogs, a favourite of the gardening club, are often spotted around the nearby allotment, so students hope that their new hedgehog houses will attract them onto the school site and offer safety from predators. They are also looking into fostering hedgehogs over the winter months to help their local wildlife charities cope with the amount that are brought in.
“Over the winter when they need homes for them just to hibernate in, that’s what we’re trying to get ready for. So, if they do wake up, there’ll be food, there’ll be water and they’ll be safe.” – Ms Layton, Gardening club lead
Students have helped design the new sensory path at Lower Meadow Primary Academy, Sheffield. The path will form part of the school’s sensory garden, a calm space to help students manage the demands of the school day.
The prize money is being used to improve Frome College, Frome’s onsite pond. Indigenous pond plants will be bought to help oxygenate the pond and improve biodiversity, creating an invaluable teaching resource that will be used across the curriculum.
Food £1000 winners
For the past year, St Martin’s has been working hard to create a community garden and won Nature Prize funding to help bring their vision to life. Despite being hit with some delays, plans for the garden are ready and they have even secured a further £1000 of funding through Dobbies’ Community Garden competition.
Staff envision the garden as a place where the community can come together to grow fruit and vegetables, with the produce put towards their food bank and school kitchen. Every class will have their own fruit tree and raised bed and will learn about seasonal planting. There are also plans to get a cold frame so students can learn to grow plants from seed throughout the year.
As part of Brighton Council’s ‘Our City, Our World’ project, St Martin’s has focused on building opportunities for nature connection into their curriculum, especially as many of their students lack green space at home. They have already purchased the sleepers that will make up a new garden seating area for students and are hoping the space will become a green oasis in an otherwise concreate playground.
It’s not only the students who will benefit from the garden – the school hopes to boost its wildlife and biodiversity with pollinator friendly companion plants for the fruit and veg. With plans to invite the local church congregation in to help with the planting, St Martin’s is on track to hit the ground running in the new school year and bring its community garden to life.
“We are excited to get the children involved in the project and get growing. It will become a much needed green space in our school community.” – Ms Brooman, Educational visits and Geography coordinator
Students and staff at Furrowfield School, Gateshead, which is a Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) specialist provisioner, are installing raised beds for students to learn how to grow their own food. They will also build borders filled with wildflowers and sensory plants, supporting biodiversity and creating a calm garden for students to reset and relax in.
Since opening its doors two years ago, specialist Social, Emotional and Mental Health unit, The Promise School, has been busy transforming its grounds into an all-round outdoor learning space. With a lot of students finding traditional classroom learning difficult, the school wants to provide alternative routes to learning, through a variety of outdoor activities, including food growing, cooking, and building amongst others.
Despite a number of delays ranging from COVID to access issues, staff and students have made up for lost time by planting 250 hedging plants around a previously barren field, marking out sections for a sports field, growing space and forest school. The plants were donated to the school by the Forestry Commission and Devon Wildlife Trust, and every child in the school got involved in the planting, learning how to mulch them for protection.
The Nature Prize money was put towards their new growing area. Sixteen raised beds were installed, that’s one for every class once the school has reached capacity. Each class will be in charge of their bed, deciding what they’d like to plant and learning seasonal growing skills. Mr Upston, who is leading the project, would eventually like to invite the school community to an open harvest, with a variety of fruits and vegetables grown onsite.
The raised beds are part of the school’s larger transformation of the previously barren field. There’s already a seating area, potting shed, compost toilet and further plans for an outdoor classroom, polytunnel and pond – maybe even some ducks! Altogether they are aiming for an outdoor space that they can not only grow in, but also harvest and cook from as well.
“We’ve still got children here that do not understand where food come from. So that was part of why we wanted to do the whole food growing thing, engage them in understanding the whole food cycle.”
Mr Upston, Outdoor learning lead
Staff want the growing area, and whole outdoor site, to be used as an extension of the classroom, particularly for students who are having trouble transitioning back into fulltime education or have trouble in traditional classroom settings. Once the whole site is set up, the plan is to open the site as an Alternative Learning Provision, where other mainstream schools can send students struggling to cope.
William Morris Primary School has been on a mission to transform its outdoor space into a thriving garden and growing area. Parents and community members have been integral in planning the garden, and regularly get involved with all sorts of garden tasks.
Though the school has had the space for a number of years, after COVID it became disused and overgrown. Now, they’ve used their Nature Prize funding to clear the space, buy gardening equipment and put in planters for food growing, along with a greenhouse to help them grow year-round. The project is part of the school’s wider focus on reducing food-waste and they hope that soon the school kitchen can use produce grown onsite.
The school will eventually open the garden up to community groups they are partnered with, including Sustainable Merton. Inviting the community in and encouraging them to take joint ownership of it will be a huge help to the school when it comes to maintaining what they’ve built.
Already, parents and families have got stuck in, offering a range of skills and help. Every week, parents are invited to join after school ‘Garden Workforce’ sessions where they help with any jobs needed. One landscape-gardener parent even brought along his mini woodchipper to turn tree waste into bark used for compost!
Despite having problems with foxes and other wildlife eating the vegetables being grown, staff, students and parents are persisting and refuse to be put off, changing the type of veg to something less popular with foxes.
“This project has helped to kick start the gardening and outdoor learning space for the children and families. The funding helped to provide a boost to make an initial transformation to the space and helps create the long term vision to include more children and families in using this area for the health and wellbeing benefits for all. Thank you.”
Food £200 winners
Gardening and outdoor learning has been important part of life at Rowley Hall Primary School and, though they already grew a small amount of produce onsite, they had ambitions to make things bigger and more exciting. Funding from the Nature Prize has allowed them to do so, expanding their food growing programme to involve the local community.
With the funding, the school bought new equipment, including planters, plastic canopies and gardening equipment to create a student-friendly growing space. Students have absolutely loved seeing watching the plants grow from seed and learning to identify different species.
“It’s like they [the kids] have got focus and they’ve got a purpose and they’re helping with things they might not get to do at home. They’ve absolutely loved it.” Ms. Myers-Horton, School Business Manager
Already, they’ve grown three varieties of courgette, tomatoes, sweetcorn, beetroots, currants and potatoes. Seeing the success of the project has also inspired parents to get involved, and sparked donations of seeds, planters and sleepers.
Aside from the educational benefits of this food growing, the project has had a fantastic impact on the local community. Students have started delivering fresh food boxes to elderly households living near the school, ensuring that those living in isolation have access to healthy and nutritious food. Not only has this helped to build relationships between the school and wider community but is teaching students valuable lessons about the importance of helping others and taking pride in doing so.
As an urban school, many students of Cayley Primary don’t have access to green spaces at home and lacked an understanding of where their food comes from. To change this, staff used their Nature Prize funds to pilot the ‘Grow a Meal’ project, a creative learning opportunity linking storytelling and food growing skills.
Part of the funding was used to bring in a storyteller, who introduced the American Indigenous story of ‘The Three Sisters’ – a tale of cooperation and interdependence in nature. The story has formed the backbone of their gardening project, with students taking part in four workshops about each stage of the food growing cycle.
“It’s really nice to have a focus—a project to hang it on—because it helps make emotional sense of growing. It’s working on all levels. They’re really noticing things about how much things are growing, which one’s faster, and even that some things didn’t work, which is an important lesson in itself.” – Ms Stanley-Smith, Outdoor learning lead
Gardening and growing food has been a focus of St Peter-in-Thanet CE Junior School over the past year. Over the whole year, every class in year 5 has one timetabled slot per week for them to work on their on-going allotment project. As it’s not an opt-in club, every child has the chance to work in the garden and learn seasonal food growing skills during their time at the school
Students have been learning the no-dig method and, over the course of the last year, have produced an impressive harvest. Wanting to show off the allotment and pass on their newly learnt skills, the school used their Nature Prize win to throw a ‘Spring Seedling’ event.
Families, staff and community members turned up to the event in big numbers. The three year five classes were each in charge of separate stations that included an allotment tour, tasting area and no-dig demonstrations. Students showed visitors how to make a no dig bed by laying down cardboard and compost followed by veg plants students had grown from seed. The demonstrations helped to de-mystify the no-dig method, and visitors left inspired, with many having tried it out in their own gardens.
As well as compost for the no dig bed, the prize money was also put towards seeds and pots for the community to take home. Students from the infant school were also invited along, getting the chance to choose and pot their own seeds. Feedback has been great, with lots of parents asking for growing tips and advice about their new plants.
A key idea of the seedling event was to make it playful and free flowing – attendees were encouraged just to have a go and see what happens, an idea that is at the center of all gardening done at St Peter’s.
“There’s a huge variety and huge diversity in engagement, some kids will just love to just look at a lady bird for the whole half hour. I just try and allow all of it and provide that kind of escapism feeling. It’s about creating a positive association with nature, basically.” – Ms Fewster, volunteer gardener
As part of Grantown Grammar School, Grantown on Spey’s ‘Grow Your Own’ project, the prize money will be put towards the construction of a polytunnel so students can grow produce outside of the short Highland growing season.
Adaptation and Resilience £1000 winners
Situated next to one of Sheffield’s busiest roads and with a mainly tarmacked playground, Nether Edge Primary School have been eager to introduce some greenery onto their school site. Staff and students won a £1,000 Nature Prize to turn a muddy corner of the playground into a nature-rich space that will help the school adapt to climate impacts.
Winning the prize kicked off an ambitious plan to create an accessible garden that would boost biodiversity and wildlife, improve air quality, and give students space to connect with nature.
With the help of the school’s partner charity, Kids Plant Trees, and a forest school practitioner brought on to help with the project, students were invited to create their own garden designs, all of them brimming with creative ideas.
A specially formed Forest Garden Team, made up of around 20 pupil premium, SEND and EAL students, reviewed the designs in a planning session, eventually coming up with the final design that includes a sensory path, shaded reading area, drought resistant plants, wildlife garden and sensory digging area.
As well as funding from the Nature Prize, the school raised additional funds from a bake sale, and put the money towards plants. A local garden centre also donated some greenery, as well as staff and community members who gave cuttings from their own gardens. A local timbers’ merchant, Pagets, also donated treated timber for the building of the seating area in the reading corner.
The first stage of bringing the garden designs to life is well underway – raised beds are in place and students have taken part in two planting session of drought-resistant, bee friendly species and scented herbs.
The official opening of the nature garden is planned for the start of term and will include and a structured day where each class can explore the new space and learn how to use it responsibly. Not only will it be open to students during break and lunch but will also work as a dynamic outdoor classroom for cross-curricular learning.
“We’re just trying to think about how the different aspects of the curriculum could be used in the garden and making sure that it’s used in lessons. At the moment, it’s mainly been used as an outdoor play area for enjoyment and as a nice little oasis of nature, but it’d be really nice if teachers know how they can use it for curriculum learning as well.” – Ms Macnair, Year 4 teacher
Transforming a disused corner of the playground into a thriving garden has not only increased students’ opportunities for outdoor learning and nature connection but has also made the school itself more resilient to unpredictable and extreme weather. Adding dedicated shading areas, native species, and plants resistant to drought are innovative and much needed ways of adapting to the worsening impacts of climate change.
Adaptation and Resilience £200 winners
Ysgol Clywedog’s Eco-Taskforce is committed to making the school a more sustainable place and have had a successful year of veg growing, bee keeping and even winning awards. Noticing that growing fruit and vegetables has become more difficult with unpredictable weather and a clear, climate-change induced shift in the seasons, students used their Nature Prize win to buy new protective storage areas, and a wet weather shelter so the Eco-Taskforce can continue their work in all conditions.
“Our motto is ‘Eco-Taskforce: 2019 until we get the job done’ and there is a great deal to do! We are going to continue to develop the allotment area and run the bee hives, however we are going to expand our reach again by making videos, working with other schools and putting pressure on the new government to make the changes we want to see.” – Mr Brown, Head of Earth Sciences
Water £200 winners
Rose Hill Primary School has a thriving forest school which every student, from reception up to year 6, has regular timetabled slots to visit and spend time in nature. To make their forest school more sustainable, they used their Nature Prize funds to buy water butts, cutting down the amount of tap water used on the site.
With water needed for washing hands, watering plants and playing in the mud kitchen, staff struggled with transporting enough water from the school. Now with a water butt installed, not only have they slashed their water usage, but also made the site easier to use and more appealing to staff across the school. The butts will be especially helpful over summer, when the plants need more water.
The mud kitchen part of the forest school is a particular favourite amongst students across all age groups. Without water, students run out of things to play with and create, so having water on site has been a real hit.
“So, in that way it’s been really good, really sweet. Our ten- and eleven-year-olds love the mud kitchen just as much as the younger ones. Once children leave reception, it feels like they’re told not to play anymore, but then they come out to the forest and they’re setting up cafes, making mud pizzas, pots of tea. It’s really great to see.” – Ms Jackson, Forest School Assistant
Culture £1000 winners
Rather than focus on physical infrastructure, or large scale planting initiatives, St Vincent de Paul Catholic Primary School, wanted to spend their Nature Prize developing staff’s skills and capacity to teach and embed sustainable practices across the school and curriculum.
They have partnered with reShaped, a local sustainable landscape architecture organisation, to train teachers how to identify and understand natural resources around the school site, and how they can be used as teaching tools. The money will be put towards three whole staff workshops, including one where staff will be taught how to maintain green spaces and grow plants from seed. Teachers often cite a lack of gardening and growing knowledge as barrier to outdoor learning, so is an important step in building confidence and capacity.
The long-term vision of the project means that students will benefit from its legacy for years to come. Rather than relying on a single forest school teacher or sustainability lead, St Vincent’s is aiming to build a robust, resilient program not dependent on any one individual.
Students will also be involved in the project’s implementation, too. The third workshop will consist of the teachers putting on an interclass competition and celebration, giving staff the chance to put into practice what they’ve learnt and use their new skills to teach the students. The competition element gives students the chance to engage with the natural environment in creative ways, whether that’s plant growing, nature inspired poetry or art. Teachers will also be trained to run the RHS School Garden certificates programme for their students and the celebration will include a plant showcase of what they’ve grown.
“[The project] fits in really well also with what’s happening in the city centre, Liverpool One. We are a Liverpool One school so we’ve seen all of that redevelopment in our area – Chavasse Park with the bees – so it’s really good for our children to see and link what’s happening in our city and in our little community area and how we can support nature.” Ms. Salters, Headteacher
Waste £200 winners
Christ Church Academy have been on a mission to lower their carbon impacts and over the past year, have been working hard to create a community garden. With their £200 Nature Prize, they bought a wormery to reduce waste from the school kitchens and make their own compost.
Students with additional needs have been monitoring the wormery alongside their teaching assistant, and staff are already seeing positive impacts from the time spent outside, connecting with the natural world.
“One of our children in particular is really flourishing with all the time that he’s spending outside. He loves collecting the scraps from the kitchen and making sure that the worms are well fed. It has had a huge impact on his ability to focus more in class too.” – Ms Hayward, School Business Manager
The new community garden has been set up in a small, disused space, with funding from the school’s local Rotary Club. Though still in its early stages, staff hope that it will become a place for parents and families to come, enjoy and access the fruit and veg grown there. There are also plans to get the residents of the local care home involved to help in the garden and see the worms in action.
Explore our map to see the OVO Foundation Prize winners that are taking climate action through nature.
After receiving an overwhelming number of entries from across the country, our judges selected the most inspiring and creative entries that have the power to inspire young people and the wider school community.
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