The Berry Schools Project is a recent addition to the RHET ACI suite of activity and its delivery has been badly affected by COVID as the pilot year was 2019.  The Project is being delivered in partnership with Angus Soft Fruits.

Our Project Co-ordinator Carol Littlewood linked 20 classes from 10 schools with a number of Agronomists working for Angus Soft Fruits.  As usual, we split the schools taking part between Angus and Dundee.  Carol arranged the visits for the Agronomists, where each class was given a talk about soft fruit growing in Scotland and after the talk the Agronomists carried out a planting session with the children, which left the class with a planter of strawberries to look after in their classroom. 

The 2020 roll out to another 20 classes was thwarted by COVID, as although the planting sessions and talks were arranged they had not gone ahead before we knew lockdown was on it’s way.  Plans were made for the 2021 project and classes were again identified by Carol, but again plans had to be altered due access to schools not opening up as quickly as we had hoped.  Rather than cancel again, Angus Soft Fruits organized delivery of the strawberry plants and planters directly to the schools identified for taking part and then they made a video that RHET ACI circulated to the classes taking part. 

The video can be watched below: