School's in Bloom Competition 2025

Posted: 17 Jul 2025

Every year, Meadow Croft invites local schools within a 5-mile radius, to enter our Schools in Bloom Competition. Plants are delivered to the participating schools in early April. Schools then have until the beginning of July to grow the plants and display them in whatever containers, styles or pots they choose, ready to be judged by the Schools in Bloom panel. We let the children at the schools decide whether they give their garden a theme, something personal to their school or something larger such as celebrating a national day in the UK. The winner receives a £100 Meadow Croft voucher to spend on gardening provisions or plants for their school.

The Meadow Croft Schools in Bloom competition began as a way to support schools in outdoor provisions as well as encouraging children to garden at school and at home. It also offers schools the change to use free plants to brighten up any areas they felt like planting, and to help form the basis for school gardening.

This year was the competition’s 12th year, and we have seen some amazing efforts from the children.

We’d like to give a special mention to all of our schools involved this year. Each and every garden was really well thought out and put together. It was lovely to see how happy the children were about gardening and what they had achieved.

St Luke's Park Primary School / Down Hall Primary School / Hockley Primary School / Abacus Primary School / Collingwood Primary School / St Joseph's Primary School / Trinity St Mary's C of E Primary School / Oakfield Primary School / Grove Wood Primary School / Rettendon Primary School / Holts Farm Infant School

Each school received a ‘Certificate of Participation’ which celebrates the work that all the children put in over the Spring and early Summer months.

We’re pleased to announce our top 3 placed schools.

3rd Place – St Joseph's Catholic Primary School

After coming 2nd place in 2024, we were expecting big things from St Joseph's Catholic Primary School and they did not disappoint.

The children decided on a Rainbow themed garden which was based on a book they loved. The garden was lovely and colourful. They had put a big effort into the garden, they had created a song themed rainbow and also had a big book that they had used to identify bugs in the garden. A great learning tool for the children.

Visually, the garden was well cared for, but the children also explained to us how they helped plant, water and deadhead the flowers. The use of space was good.

Well done St Joseph's.

2nd Place – Abacus Primary School

We really, really enjoyed viewing the Abacus Primary School garden. The children decided that they wanted to put together a 'Wellbeing Garden' for pupils so they had time to sit, think and relax in a special place. This really resonated with us as we feel so strongly about gardening and how it helps mental and physical health. A great theme to pick Abacus!

The children enjoyed telling us how they helped plant the seedlings and had been taking it turns to look after them by watering and deadheading. All of the children were enthusiastic and were keen to show us what additions had been made to the garden.

Well done Abacus - a well-deserved 2nd place this year.

1st Place – St Luke's Park Primary School

St Luke's Park decided their garden would be created using an upcycle / preloved / recycling theme which is great, a very important subject at present! The garden was located at the front of the school, so all visitors would see their hard work!

The children showed us around the garden and explained how they all planted different sections of the garden. Pupils were extremely enthusiastic about how they had recycled many typical household items such as colanders, sinks, tyres, coat stands etc.

We really liked that they children thought about the wildlife too, using a sink they had provided wildlife with a watering hole/pond which is really important in wildlife friendly gardens.

All of the plants were healthy and well watered!

A great garden to win top place in our 2025 School's in Bloom Competition. Well done St Luke's Park!

We hope to see you again in 2026.