We've launched a new nature programme for children!
Introducing our new City Saplings Programme
The City Saplings Programme invites primary schools, nurseries and other children's groups to visit Roots and Shoots and take part in free outdoor nature sessions in our urban gardens, which are full of wildlife in the centre of London. The sessions enable inner-city children to enjoy and connect with the natural world, and have been designed to compliment their science curriculum classroom learning.
Since the 1990s, Roots and Shoots has delivered environmental education to local primary school groups, providing children with the opportunity to experience nature up-close. The sessions were very popular for over 20 years, but due to the pandemic, the retirement of our wonderful Environmental Educator David Perkins, and an end in funding we sadly had to stop this vital work in 2020.
In 2023, we began trialing a new environmental education programme, organising adhoc nature sessions with local schools who visited our site to learn about ecosystems, flora and fauna, getting up-close with creatures in our pond and pollinators across the gardens. The sessions have been extremely popular with both the schoolchildren and their teachers alike.
Many children in the surrounding area to Roots and Shoots have barriers to accessing enhanced green space - so we are offering this new programme for free, ensuring that all local children grow up with access to nature.
How have we achieved this? Since launching our new website in mid-2023, our Corporate Volunteering programme has grown, and in 2025 we began charging a fee for volunteering days, with the raised funds going towards building a pot for the City Saplings programme, alongside other environmental projects. Some of these funds have gone towards creating a new outdoor classroom in the Wild Garden, which once completed will enable us to further expand all our environmental education programmes. We have also put kind donations from local individuals, community organisations and businesses towards the City Saplings pot, so that in 2026 we are able to launch a substantial programme which reaches hundreds more children with high-quality nature learning.
City Saplings sessions take place in the Wild Garden, which features a variety of green spaces to explore including an Oak Tree Classroom, a Rose Pergola Classroom, a maze of flower borders, a pond, a wildflower meadow and woodland area, and food-growing sessions in the Kitchen Garden.
Session themes include animal lifecycles and their habitats, seasonal changes, identifying how plants adapt and grow, healthy soil for food growing and much more. They include activities like pond dipping, garden safari walks, bulb planting and art. Each session features two environmental educators to teach and guide pupils in their activities.
Sessions are designed for classes from Nursery to Year 3, with learning coinciding with the seasons and the science curriculum. We aim for local children to visit the garden from nursery to Year 3 and beyond repeatedly for nature sessions, building on their learning with us each year and developing a connection with the garden and the life it contains, inspiring them to connect with nature across their lives.
Find out more and book a City Saplings session
"If children don't grow up knowing about nature and appreciating it, they will not understand it.
And if they don't understand it, they won't protect it.
And if they don't protect it, who will?"