A trip to the farm

From celebrity chefs to government ministers, what we eat and where it comes from are firmly on the agenda. High profile stories like the horse meat scandal and milk prices have featured heavily in the media in recent years and families up and down the country are increasingly hungry to learn more about how our crops and livestock are produced. Food provenance has become a popular topic in schools in recent times, especially since food became a statutory part of the curriculum in September 2014.

Farms, especially farm attractions with purpose built facilities, offer a safe, healthy and fun learning environment with inspirational people holding vast amounts of knowledge of their businesses and the countryside they operate in.

The National Farm Attractions Network (NFAN) is the UK trade association for Farm Parks and rural attractions. It has over 200 members who welcome millions of visitors each year and host thousands of school visits.

As always on a farm visit the emphasis is on fun and the outdoors, wherever possible. Many farm attractions however also offer under cover areas too for when the weather is that bit too inclement to be able to concentrate outdoors. With their experience of hosting visitors and with the British weather all year round, farm attraction operators usually have activities that can be carried out indoors with just as many fun learning opportunities.

Lamb Cam
At this time of year, pupils and students can prepare for a visit by watching live footage of sheep and lambs. Many attractions host a ‘Lamb Cam’ with a live feed from the lambing shed to their website, providing an opportunity to see, study and write about farm animals, life processes and even the technology before they visit.

As well as the more cuddly species, there are more than a handful of farm attractions that have widened their range of animals beyond what you would usually expect to see on a British farm.

You might find your local farm attraction has reptiles or birds of prey, again opening up the possibilities of a more hands-on learning opportunity.

However, if not, bottle-feeding the lambs or hand-feeding the goats are usually every day occurrences, they usually enjoy the facilities designed for that and the industry developed a Code of Practice, together with the HSE, HPA and other organisations as a guideline for operations.

Educational visits can ask the children to explore the journeys their food makes, include learning about food miles and origins, as well as climate influence on crops. These, of course, draw in geography and history as subjects which could also include ‘Dig for Victory’ topics, changes in technology, local produce, regional produce and landscapes. Physical Education can be drawn in to diets for animals compared to humans, farm walks and healthier lifestyles.

Walby Farm Park
Walby Farm Park, near Carlisle, has been hosting school and group visits since 1992, but in 2008 took the plunge and opened an area of the farm to the paying public. They continue to operate a working farm alongside, growing crops and rearing beef and sheep as well as farming under various environmental schemes. This year the farm park has been awarded ‘Farm Attraction of the Year 2015’ by the National Farm Attractions Network.

The farm has hosted and led educational visits from agricultural colleges as well as further education and higher education courses including business, tourism, farming and the environment. There have been family numeracy and literacy days held here as well as home educator group visits.

This is in addition to other primary school groups and secondary school students who have even held maths lessons here.

Walby Farm Park’s owners, Neil and Katie Milbourn, firmly believe that educating the next generation to care where its food comes from is one of the most important issues in food production and farming today.

Katie Milbourn explained that the farm and its team of CEVAS-educated (Countryside Educational Visits Accreditation Scheme) guides have adapted Walby’s learning opportunities to include topics being studied by the pupils.

She said: “We’ve had great fun and excitement in the past with topic work that we would never normally have brought onto the farm. It’s included topics such as the author Julia Donaldson’s book ‘What the Ladybird Heard’ and other classics such as ‘Charlotte’s Web’ at primary level. We’ve also had secondary school maths lessons studying velocity on our 24ft Demon Drop Slide in our Play Barn; it’s good to think outside the box.”

Family numeracy groups visiting Walby have covered many aspects of numeracy in both KS1 and KS2 including weights and measures in practical activities, used in baking bread through to measuring the daily feed requirements for different animals in their animal barn. A system of ‘mini-fields’ has also been explored with pupils scaling down their farming operations to a mini-field of just 1m2. Pupils, for example, have studied and worked on the numbers of individual grains requiring planting through to the number of loaves a 1m2 field could produce.

Katie Milbourn continued: “Often the main reason for visiting a farm is to meet the animals or see the crops grown first hand, whether its carrot growing under straw or lambs being born and chicks being hatched.

Animal interactions are often the most memorable and can bring out qualities in children that other activities don’t. Sometimes it’s the first time a child has been up close to an animal other than a family pet. I don’t know about you, I can’t remember many school days in particular but I’m sure I can remember every school trip or off-site visit.”

Old Macdonalds Farm
Ray Smith organises the education service at Old Macdonald’s Farm in Essex which this year won the NFAN, Best in Education award.

Old Macdonald’s ran a pilot project last year working with a local primary and a secondary schools. The children came in and worked directly with the animals, getting in with the animals, feeding and mucking out the pigs and the goats. The scheme was such a hit with the pupils and teachers that Old Macdonald’s farm are now offering it as an option with all school visits.

Ray Smith said: “The ability for us to enable the children to get so closely involved in handling the animals has not been without its challenges. We are fortunate in having a fantastic team of volunteers and young people on work experience who help supervise. This enables us to have the high staff to pupil ratio you need. Of course the children love it.

“A Farm Park is an ideal introduction to the world of farming, and the countryside. Farm Attractions combine a little bit of fun with the school visit, which enables children to be relaxed and have a great time learning.

A good farm park will send children away enthused and excited and wanting to learn more. The farmer will be able to talk children through exactly what farming is about. A farm attraction which is not a working dairy farm may only have a couple of cows rather than a herd of cows, so the challenge for the farmer is to relate what the children see to the real world of farming, it’s a form of ‘farm light’. Farm attractions are geared up to offer things like tractor trailer rides, animated shows and demonstration areas.”

Smith continued: “I would encourage teachers to visit a farm park for themselves, experience it and talk to the farm park staff about school visits, most farm parks will offer free teacher visits. You can study animals in the classroom, online and watch videos, but nothing comes close to actually seeing the animals and having controlled access to them.”

Hall Hill Farm
Ann Darlington runs Hall Hill Farm in County Durham which won the NFAN best in Education award in 2014. It has been in the same family for nearly a hundred years and has been hosting school visits for over 30 years. It has been inspected as suitable and safe for school visits by the CEVAS and also holds the Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC) Award. They have a loyal following amongst schools in the area and see the same schools return year after year. They welcome over 15,000 school children a year.

Ann Darlington said: “March to July is the busiest time of year for school visits and we can find most days fully booked.

We only take about six to eight classes a day to ensure each class gets a full guided tour with our knowledgeable and enthusiastic farm staff. We put a lot of effort into looking after the school visitors.

“Farm attractions are ideally placed to cater for school visits. They generally have indoor or undercover areas for workshops and eating lunch. Whereas commercial farms tend to specialise in one type of animal, at a farm attraction you will generally get to see a wide range of animals.”

Ann continued: “Farm attractions are also geared up for visitors which can make life a lot less stressful for teachers. Things like somewhere warm and dry to leave bags, to eat a packed lunch, toilets, sufficient hand wash facilities and a priority on health and hygiene. Farm parks will often be able to provide risk assessments for teachers.”

Exploring further
Other resources at some farm attractions might include forest school type activities, from bush-craft skills, arts and crafts activities to preparing and cooking food outside or even Iron Age life in farming, or Victorian times. Pond-dipping activities is one more activity which farm attractions can sometimes offer, it is seasonal for the best results but samples can be brought inside when the weather isn’t what you’d hoped for.

Others like Rand Farm Park, in Lincolnshire host fully residential courses bringing in and visiting many local food producers as well as their own resources, as rural activity breaks.

One thing is sure on a farm, pupils and students will be encouraged to adopt a ‘hands-on’ approach to interactive activities.

Many farm attractions can cover a variety of topics including diversification, animal husbandry, food production, organic vs conventional farming, selective breeding and land management and are happy to adapt visits to subjects or topic areas you are working towards. Most Farm Parks will offer a free pre-visit to teachers coming to do their risk assessment and wanting to confirm the facilities for themselves.

They are often LoTC accredited as well as offering CEVAS-trained guides (Access to Farms, Trained personnel & Farm accredited).

There’s never been a more relevant time to organise a school day out on the farm.

Further information
www.farmattractions.net