Garden Club

Local Organisations Help Support School

It all started with Liz Woods, a teacher at Katikati Primary School. Liz is a dynamo, working on the KKPS environment, getting help in the form of manpower and money wherever she can recruit it. For instance, our local Katikati Rotary have been amazing. Liz had even negotiated a bit  f land behind the swimming pool at KKPS to create a garden patch. She had it fenced and ready to go! Thanks to people like Joe Briffa, for building the gardens and Katikati Building Supplies for a good deal on the timber.

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Then all we needed was time and a gardener.

Enter SuperGrans Western Bay of Plenty, established in Katikati early in 2017. SuperGrans recruits mainly retired folk to pass on knowledge and skills to enhance community health and well being. SuperGrans approached KKPS to see if they wanted any volunteers for an existing reading support programme in the school (Nga Kaihapai). Jan Bibby (KKPS) suggested Anne Billing (SuperGrans) and she get together to see if there might be other possibilities to collaborate on since the reading was well supported.

This resulted in CLUBS being run, once a week at lunchtime – primarily for Year 6 students. SuperGrans facilitated Baking, Knitting, Sewing, Woodwork, Craft, Science Experiments and GARDENING Clubs since
2017. Once again, supported by the local Rotary organisation.

So what does this have to do with Liz Woods’ dream? It just so happens that one of the SuperGrans (Chris) is a retired nurseryman! Now Chris’ dreams are coming true too. He has brought Liz’s garden patch dreams to
life. Thanks to Kings Seeds and Daltons for donations to grow our dreams!

Chris’ dream is to pass on gardening skills so folk know how to eat  healthily and support their families with ‘slow’ food! He’s training
4 students at a time (that’s 32 a year, as we run the Clubs twice a term) to understand and experience the elements of Life in the Garden Patch.

At KKPS we are making dreams come true for SuperGrans, for teachers, for students and ultimately for the future!

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Jan Bibby


Jan is passionate about helping people succeed. She has published ‘Jan Bibbys Kids Language Kit’ (www.kidslanguagekit.co.nz) and written a life skills programme called ‘Grow Your Future’.
She has taught at every level of the education system and is a registered piano teacher. Jan loves being with her family, reading, writing, being outdoors, composing music and creating things. Jan teaches literacy, ESOL and Special Needs at Katikati Primary School.