Emerging from its underground bunker, the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms in partnership with the Royal Parks have recreated a Second World War allotment and a modern day allotment side by side in St James’s Park. The allotments will be tended by local school children, community volunteers, the Royal Parks’ gardeners and apprentice gardeners. Core themes are gardening and growing vegetables, healthy eating, healthy living, recycling and wildlife preservation and sustainability set within the context of the Second World War and today.

The Dig for Victory project features formal and informal learning programmes aimed at families and adults.

Teachers Pack
The Dig for Victory teachers pack, funded by the Department for Education and Skills Growing Schools programme and CABE Open Space has been designed to give you all the information you need to create your own Dig for Victory themed garden and to demonstrate a few of the many practical ways you can use your ‘outdoor classroom’ to deliver the curriculum with a focus on healthy living and sustainability. We have added additional inserts to the teachers packs on the themes of Wildlife, Clothes rationing, Salvage and Where does your food come from?

Dig for Victory was a response to a wartime problem of food shortages but many of its issues relate to topics that we are concerned about today – having access to fresh healthy food, being active and living sustainably. Creating a Dig for Victory garden at your school is a great way to explore these themes with your pupils, as well as investigate the food and lifestyle of the Second World War.

Download each section of the teachers pack:

Introduction
Dig for Victory
Why have an allotment?
Planning your allotment
Keeping a record
Equipped for the job
Money then, money now
Risky business
What to plant
What does that grow into?
Why make compost?
Friend or foe?
Water
Wartime diet and rationing
Victory vegetables
Food for thought
Food worries
Propaganda
Growing Schools Programme
Clothes
Food
Salvage
Birds
Dig For Victory Teachers' Pack contents

How much is it likely to cost?
The biggest expense in creating an allotment is likely to be the tools. You will also need time to prepare the allotment – asking parents or friends to help is a great way to get them involved with the school, you may also find an appeal for tools fruitful. Additionally you will need seeds, compost and if you do not have space at school, you will need to hire an allotment costing in the region of £25 for a year.

What if we have no space?
You can just as easily run the activities in this pack with a small container garden, or even grow vegetables in window boxes: the main thing is to get growing!

We are also offering free school sessions in the allotment with a museum visit suitable for Key Stage 1, 2 and 3 from 2 June - 18 July and 8 - 30 September 2008.

The sessions focus on the Dig for Victory campaign during the Second World War, gardening, wildlife and sustainability, and cover parts of the history, science, citizenship and PSHE curriculum.

For more information see our website www.iwm.org.uk/cabinetlearning. The allotment sessions can also be combined with other elements of our extensive schools programme. To book call our Learning team on 020 7766 0130 / 0132 or e-mail
cwr-edu@iwm.org.uk