Kauri Park School on Auckland’s North Shore is tucked away on the side of a hill, amongst greenery and fields, with plenty of space for a large garden area and orchard brimming with produce. We had a chat to Maya, the driving force behind all the garden activities about the school’s composting journey.
Tell us a bit about yourself?
I have been a teacher at Kauri Park School for three years. I oversee the running of the garden and its volunteers, and help an amazing volunteer run the student gardening club. I also facilitate the student Enviro Council, and coordinate the Garden to Table programme.
At home, I am a keen composter, I love gardening, and I’m registered on Sharewaste so people can connect with me who don’t have their own means of composting but want to get rid of their food scraps in a positive way.
Tell us a bit about the garden at Kauri Park School?
Our garden sits at the top of our field, beside our orchard. We have a herb garden, and we grow flowers, vegetables, and fruit, including silverbeet, spinach, lettuce, rhubarb, corn, tomatoes, bananas, and celery, to name a few. We have a wooden garden/ tool shed, built by the principal and a group of “loveable muppets”. We also have a large chicken coop with six chickens and rainwater harvesters to collect their drinking water, two worm farm bathtubs, and our large, brand new compost bin system. The area is maintained by students, with the help of committed volunteers who are there on a weekly, if not daily, basis.
When did you start composting at Kauri Park School, and what methods do you use?
Pip from The Compost Collective ran a workshop here a few years ago. She suggested we apply for a grant for a fancy, new compost bin to replace our original one. Pip then returned recently to show the children how to start up the new composting system, and it was hands-on for everyone. New entrants helped assemble the bin, two of our Enviro Council students took part in the first filling of the bin, and students from the middle school came along to help – shredding the paper, collecting the freshly mown grass clippings, scooping up the mulch, and finding sticks and fallen leaves. Pip then led another workshop with the parents and family of the students to get everyone involved.
We also have two worm farm bathtubs that are looked after by one of our kind volunteers, and our chickens eat some of the food scraps from the school and those brought in from home by students and teachers.
How do you make composting an easy part of everyday school life?
We are trying to make it the norm for the students to not want to create waste and get rid of any they do create in the best way possible. Our students are taught from the ground up about the impact their food waste has on the environment, how we can use food better, including growing our own for the Garden to Table programme and to feed the chickens, and we are also working to involve our whole community whanau in the education and composting/ garden process.
We have a pack in/ pack out waste policy, where children take home anything left in their lunch boxes and are moving towards a system where food scraps can be thrown in the specially labelled bins around the school to be composted. With food scraps, our first priority is feeding the worms and the chickens before things go in the compost. In Garden to Table, students know what the worms like to eat and separate their kitchen scraps into worm buckets and compost buckets. The chickens often get the leftover food from the Garden to Table lunches.
We have a small economy in action in the garden too. We sell some of our seedlings outside school to the public, and extra chicken eggs that are not used in our school cooking are sold to staff. This makes some extra cash to buy pony poo for the compost bin. The children were told by Pip about all the activator qualities of pony poo and seaweed, and how the additional nitrogen speeds up the composting process.
Kauri Park School on Auckland’s North Shore is tucked away on the side of a hill, amongst greenery and fields, with plenty of space for a large garden area and orchard brimming with produce. We had a chat to Maya, the driving force behind all the garden activities about the school’s composting journey.
Tell us a bit about yourself?
I have been a teacher at Kauri Park School for three years. I oversee the running of the garden and its volunteers, and help an amazing volunteer run the student gardening club. I also facilitate the student Enviro Council, and coordinate the Garden to Table programme.
At home, I am a keen composter, I love gardening, and I’m registered on ShareWaste so people can connect with me who don’t have their own means of composting but want to get rid of their food scraps in a positive way.
Tell us a bit about the garden at Kauri Park School?
Our garden sits at the top of our field, beside our orchard. We have a herb garden, and we grow flowers, vegetables, and fruit, including silverbeet, spinach, lettuce, rhubarb, corn, tomatoes, bananas, and celery, to name a few. We have a wooden garden/ tool shed, built by the principal and a group of “loveable muppets”. We also have a large chicken coop with six chickens and rainwater harvesters to collect their drinking water, two worm farm bathtubs, and our large, brand new compost bin system. The area is maintained by students, with the help of committed volunteers who are there on a weekly, if not daily, basis.
When did you start composting at Kauri Park School, and what methods do you use?
Pip from The Compost Collective ran a workshop here a few years ago. She suggested we apply for a grant for a fancy, new compost bin to replace our original one. Pip then returned recently to show the children how to start up the new composting system, and it was hands-on for everyone. New entrants helped assemble the bin, two of our Enviro Council students took part in the first filling of the bin, and students from the middle school came along to help – shredding the paper, collecting the freshly mown grass clippings, scooping up the mulch, and finding sticks and fallen leaves. Pip then led another workshop with the parents and family of the students to get everyone involved.
We also have two worm farm bathtubs that are looked after by one of our kind volunteers, and our chickens eat some of the food scraps from the school and those brought in from home by students and teachers.
How do you make composting an easy part of everyday school life?
We are trying to make it the norm for the students to not want to create waste and get rid of any they do create in the best way possible. Our students are taught from the ground up about the impact their food waste has on the environment, how we can use food better, including growing our own for the Garden to Table programme and to feed the chickens, and we are also working to involve our whole community whanau in the education and composting/ garden process.
We have a pack in/ pack out waste policy, where children take home anything left in their lunch boxes and are moving towards a system where food scraps can be thrown in the specially labelled bins around the school to be composted. With food scraps, our first priority is feeding the worms and the chickens before things go in the compost. In Garden to Table, students know what the worms like to eat and separate their kitchen scraps into worm buckets and compost buckets. The chickens often get the leftover food from the Garden to Table lunches.
We have a small economy in action in the garden too. We sell some of our seedlings outside school to the public, and extra chicken eggs that are not used in our school cooking are sold to staff. This makes some extra cash to buy pony poo for the compost bin. The children were told by Pip about all the activator qualities of pony poo and seaweed, and how the additional nitrogen speeds up the composting process.
What would you say to other schools to encourage them to compost?
- It is way easier than you think it may be
- Attend a workshop with the Compost Collective to understand the basics yourself
- Organise a tutor to run a Compost Collective workshop at your school for the local community
- Get everyone involved and hands-on in your school community to get the flow on effect, starting with the children
- Review your school waste policies, and consider implementing a pack in/ pack out waste policy where caregivers can actually see what is being wasted each day
- Educate, educate, educate!
Through composting and involving the community, Maya and Kauri Park School are doing a fantastic job redirecting their food waste from landfills. If every school did the same, it would make a huge in-road to reducing the 155,000 tonnes of food waste households currently send to the landfill every year.
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