Entry Criteria
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The REEP Awards
The REEP Garden Awards is a competition open to all schools - Primary, Secondary & Special schools - in England, Scotland & Wales.
REEP Garden Awards are for at least £500 and are given to projects which demonstrate one or both of these key principles:
- An awareness of faith tradition in their design.
- The practice of stewardship in their function and design.
These are broad principles and schools may choose to express them in a variety of ways. For example you could create:
- A Faith Garden. Such a garden would reflect the art and culture of one or many world faiths. Working on the project should increase children’s ability to identify how different traditions enrich human experience.
- A Wild Garden. A garden which reflects our stewardship of the natural world and, in doing so, provides a learning resource for the school community.
- A Garden for Worship. The creation of a space suited to individual, class or whole-school worship. It may also offer opportunity for use by local faith groups.
- Outside/Inside Garden. Such a garden would bring a quiet reflective space inside the school building. It may be in the body of the building itself or have the framework of a quadrangle or courtyard. It would retain the spirit of a garden from whatever tradition.
- A Community Garden. A garden which is not necessarily in the school grounds, but which a school ‘adopts’ to provide a space for wider community use. In doing this the school expresses both stewardship and community involvement.
- An Early Years Garden. A garden developed as part of the outside play area for pre-five children. The design would encompass the curriculum for under fives and include the provision for their spiritual development and relationship to the wider world.
- A Memorial Garden. A garden which celebrates an important event in the life of the school or an anniversary in the history of the wider community.
- A new ‘Green’ Space. This option should emerge from a survey of local land use, perhaps in participation with a planning department or voluntary amenity agency. Priorities in community need will suggest the creation or reordering of public space eg. for recreation or appropriate purpose.
This is a list of suggestions! You can adapt them, or create another kind of garden - it is up to you. It may be a brand new garden, a new area of an existing garden, or the rejuvenation of an older garden. At the point of application Every entry must, though, show us how it is rooted in one or both of key principles stated above.
Effective applications will demonstrate:
- the purpose of the garden
- that the garden has engaged with the key principles from an early stage in its design and implementation
- that the garden uses environmentally friendly practices in its construction and use of materials
- relevance to the age, capabilities and needs of the children involved
- that children have a real voice in the project
- how the process of designing, making and using the garden would contribute to the student’s spiritual development and understanding of citizenship
- cross-curricular links where appropriate
- effective use of ICT, especially in the presentation of applications (see the website for ideas and hints)
The REEP-ACE Award
REEP, in conjunction with ACE (Art & Christian Enquiry) is pleased to announce a further award for an artist working with a school to design a garden which includes an artwork incorporating text. The work may be in any medium and inspired by any world faith.
Projects may be eligible for both a REEP and the ACE award.
ENTRIES
Start planning now for the submission of entries at the end of April 2005.
An application form will be available shortly on the website.
INSET days will be held around the country and information will be published on the website to help you with your entries.
For further information, please contact us.