We're fortunate to have Dr. Paddy Madden living locally and as a regular visitor to our school. Paddy has been an advocate of school gardening for decades. He is a former primary teacher and spent 16 years working as a lecturer in social, environmental and scientific education in a College of Education. He has co-designed 7 school gardens for Bloom and organised 6 school garden conferences with SEED (schoolearthed.ie). Paddy and Des Murtagh created the website, Engage with Nature (engagewithnature.ie) in 2019, to create awareness and appreciation of the natural world and to foster organic gardening especially among young people. Paddy is a Heritage in School specialist (heritageinschools.ie) since 1999 and visits schools regularly to engage children with nature. Paddy is author of Go Wild at School (3rd ed.) and The School Garden: What to Do When to Do it (2nd ed.).