Please Vote for us!

We applied for a pack of free trees from Octopus Energy a while ago.  As a result we can now enter a contest - PURELY BASED ON THE NUMBER OF VOTES WE GET - to win a grant of £8,000 for our TEAM-CG project (The Ellon Academy Memorial Community Garden)

If you can spare a few minutes voting is easy (though does require several clicks and checking your email to confirm your vote).  It is a UK wide contest so the more votes we can get the better chance we stand of gaining funding.  Therefore, if you can SHARE AS WIDELY AS POSSIBLE to encourage anyone you know to help then we might be in with a chance!

Voting ends midnight on Friday 12th April so the sooner the better - please click on the link below (or image above) now!  Also, it works best if you USE GOOGLE CHROME.

To vote, follow the link, zoom in on the map to find ELLON ACADEMY and click the link to vote.

https://octopus.energy/vote-for-our-community/

THANK YOU for reading

and THANK YOU in advance for your votes!

Public Consultation for our Memorial Garden Space

We are pleased to invite anyone interested to see the outline plan for our Memorial Garden space.  

A display has been set up in the Foyer of the community wing with information and suggested ideas for an outdoor shelter, seating etc.  It outlines what help we have been pledged so far and also gives the opportunity for members of the community to have their say.

Please give general comments, requests, ideas or offers of help on the feedback sheet or if you prefer, you can email the garden co-ordinator and Additional Support for Learning teacher Susan Swallow at sswallow@ellonacademy.aberdeenshire.sch.uk

Fingers crossed - we hope that work will begin at the end of April so watch this space!

Local firms and groups have been very generous in pledging to help us so far:

·         Craig Reid – contractor to build the paths

·         Breedon Group – supply hard-core and granite dust top surface

·         GPH (JRDs Ellon) – supply path edging (still in negotiation)

·         HMP Peterhead – to build a timber shelter

·         Ellon Youth Action Forum - to build a garden seating feature

·         Ellon Timber – possibly to supply timber for the garden shelter (in negotiation)

Thank you to all the above – we couldn’t do this without your support J

·         Some help we still need:  

        A contractor to lay the patio for the central shelter to stand on

·         A supplier to give paving slabs or similar for the patio
  A supplier to give slates or similar for the shelter roof

·         Plants, trees, shrubs

·         Seating, arbour etc!

Tree Surgeons pay us a visit. Thank You!

Recently, Duncan Wight and his team from Trees are Us came into school.

They cut branches from the beech trees that were overhanging the poly-tunnel to make it safer in windy conditions.

Duncan also showed S4 pupils the equipment and machinery...

...and spoke about working as a tree surgeon.

The team shredded lots of the branches...

...and left us a lovely pile of wood-chips! We can use this for composting in the RIDAN hot composter and mulching our borders.

We also took some of the larger logs and made a "bug pile" in the wildlife area.

In other news, we had a visitor from Meldrum Academy. Ashley Gallacher hopes to co-ordinate gardening activities there and came to see our set-up and get ideas.  Good luck to her and to pupils at Meldrum in building your own garden - hope you enjoy gardening as much as we do!

Also, it's that time of year again - Potato Day!  Miss Swallow attended the Transition Black Isle Potato Day event on Saturday 2nd March to help out.  They were happy to donate a wonderful selection of seed potatoes for the school garden - Thank You!

This means we can grow many different varieties this year.  We are also selling a few to raise money for the garden :)

Also our "garden lady" was looking a bit worn from the winter rains so Mrs Kershaw is working with pupils to re-paint the legs and feet.  Watch this space for a restored brighter look!

Meanwhile the crocuses are looking good inside the warmer atmosphere of the poly-tunnel.  Lovely to see their colourful blooms emerge!