ABBEY SCHOOL HELPS AT COMMUNITY FARM

Last Friday was a lovely sunny morning and a special day for the community farm Shaftesbury Home Grown (SHG), from 9.00am until 12 noon the farm became a large outdoor classroom. Twenty four Year 3 children from Abbey School made the 300 metre trip on foot to the community farm headed by teacher Mrs Wells with some parents and teaching assistants.

After a brief introduction, the project manager Nick Crump started the educational tour of the farm with feeding and handling the Shetland sheep flock. Then all the children walked through the poly tunnel and help pick some of the tomatoes. "From the word go the children were very well behaved and responsive to the various questions and discussions we had en route about growing vegetables and animal husbandry, they even informed me that a tomato was a fruit not a vegetable, they were already quite knowledgeable and keen to learn more", said Nick.

The children were introduced to the chickens just as the eggs were being collected by Chris on his morning chicken rota, this was followed by a brief look in to the pig ark to see where the pigs live (currently vacant until the spring). "The next challenge was to plant 1kg of broad beans at the correct spacing and depth in prepared beds, each child was given a homemade dibber that also acted as a measuring stick to plant the seed at the right distance apart. It could have been chaos, but in fact it went very smoothly and I don't think we left any rows out or double planted any, we'll see when the beans start to come up!"

Having achieved the bean planting the children then planted garlic too, this required them to identify the top and bottom of each clove in order to plant them the right way up. "I was very impressed with their concentration on getting the job done correctly and in an organised way", said Robin Walter (one of the parents and member of SHG).

They had a well deserved break for a drink and biscuit after the planting, then a short 'any questions' session before walking back to school with a goodie bag of tomatoes and a potato.
On being asked if they would like to come to SHG again, the answer was a resounding 'yes' from the children and Mrs Wells was also very keen to keep a working relationship between the school and SHG too, it was agreed the potato planting in the spring would be the next appropriate job. Lambing would also be a good time.

All in all the visit was great success that hopefully can be built on in the future with Abbey School or any other school that might be interested.
"I'm delighted with the way the children responded with our local community project, it helps them understand the connection between growing good food and animal husbandry and what we eat. It was always part of our vision for the farm to play an educational role and maybe the parents might like to visit or join us as well," said Nick. SHG can be contacted via the website www.shaftesburyhomegrown.org.uk