Back in late spring, Dr Jill Biden, First Lady of the United States, visited Charles Dickens Primary School aspart of her trip to the UK for the Kings Coronation. Here, Daniela Jamois, ourForest School Teacher, remembers the day...

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Back in late spring, Dr Jill Biden, First Lady of the United States, visited Charles Dickens Primary School as part of her trip to the UK for the Kings Coronation. Here, Daniela Jamois, our Forest School Teacher, remembers the day…

Preparations for Dr Jill Biden’s visit to our school were very secretive with background checks and odd visits from suited groups of people touring the school. Tours of our school are pretty common, but this group were totally ignoring the energetic interactions I was having with children, turning their back on the class I was working with yet super interested in looking into our empty Forest School Garden.

Dr Jill Biden and Akshata Murty arrived at 1.45pm. First they visited the lunch hall where a coronation lunch was underway and then they came to the garden before being whisked off to a music lesson. A mixture of eco councillors and gardeners had helped me set up a few tables and gardening areas to showcase the nature learning we do at Charles Dickens. My most passionate students joined me just after a dramatic hailstorm to fix the table top displays and planting troughs.

As I prepared the garden space a gentleman from the secret services approached me, introduced himself, firmly shook my hand and handed me a pin I had to wear from now until the visit was over. I didn’t ever find out what the pin was for but couldn’t discount that it may have been a microphone!

Our passionate nature lovers returned at lunch time so I could tell them about the visit we had all been asked to keep quiet about. Once they calmed down, I asked them what had urged them to become eco councillors or gardeners. I was touched by their responses.

Suheera started us off by saying, “A pocket of nature in the middle of the city is really important to help children learn about nature and feel transported to a calm place. Being in here is like I am transported to another world”.

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Our next eco-warrior spoke of wanting nature to be protected and that all green spaces in London should be safeguarded. “I often think about the future and wish for a better future”.

Abir spoke of her dedication to composting. Another spoke about loving having somewhere calm to be, “The calmness of the garden reminds me of the library.” Lexine also spoke of the calmness of the garden. Even our most fidgety eco councillor spoke of the garden helping him regulate his emotions.

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I was struck by how much the children referred to their wellbeing. This is absolutely in line with the research that concludes bathing in nature supports our wellbeing. I wanted the children to be prepared to share their passion but also to be ready to respond to any question about our work or our garden.

We positioned ourselves on the decking busily transplanting self-seeded marigolds into individual pots. As the visitors and entourage approached, I put down my gloves and walked over to greet them. The handshakes and smiles were energetic. Dr Biden seemed especially delighted to talk to me and the children. We spoke of our chickens, food growing and how I will often bring back things found on country walks: “ the idea is to create a pocket of woodland with good growing on the edges so children who do not access the countryside or allotments get to learn about nature and food growing here even though we are an inner city school.”

The garden became a hive of activity with children chatting with the First Lady. Finnegan, her granddaughter, explored the space and asked the children about the herbs growing in the pots, other children talked to the US ambassador about their transplanting. I was so proud to see the children answer questions with such confidence and hear them talk with such passion about their treasured outdoor classroom.

Dr Biden was keen to ask questions about the space, how had I developed it? Why I had such a varied collection of natural objects such as birds nests, old wasps nests and feathers. I felt like we could have talked for hours, but she was on a tight schedule and was whisked away.

After the music lesson, the visiting party walked back past the garden and from the school gate Dr Biden waved across, “Bye Daniela”. It was all pretty surreal but I was happy that the eco councillors, gardeners and I had managed to express the importance of learning about and preserving nature at this very critical time when climate change is such a big threat to nature.

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