WEYDON students recently became gardeners and garden designers thanks to an in-school competition.

The contest challenged high achieving year eights to design the garden space around the secondary school’s new purpose-built Medici Theatre.

Four teams researched historical gardens, learnt about different plants and how to maintain different types of gardens, conducted market research and explored the cost of the plants and how to incorporate their designs.

They then presented their finished designs to headteacher John Winter and the head of the new building projects, Richard Woods from WSW Consultancy.

The winning design was a culmination of the two winning teams as both were very professional and had excellent ideas for each garden bed.

Maths teacher Phil Duncalfe, who led the project, said: “We were thrilled to be able to run our own competition within school and the outcome has been amazing.

“The standard was very high and the students enjoyed seeing their ideas come to fruition. It will be wonderful to now watch these gardens grow and I’m sure the students will take pride in nurturing the gardens.”