Welcome to the May issue of the primary newsletter intended especially for teachers and pupils. Please pass on any ideas or information that you find useful to parents and carers too.

Special reminder to all registered schools! Have you updated your Space on our website recently? Please let us know everything you are doing for the Year of Food and Farming by sharing news on your Space. Don’t forget you can inspire other schools to get involved too.

At the beginning of April support for the Year of Food and Farming exceeded a milestone of 20,000 pledges. Over 17,000 young people have now pledged to take part in the Year and nearly 3000 organisations have also offered their support – more and more people are pledging to take part in the Year of Food and Farming every day!

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Many schools plan class visits in the summer term and there may be many other opportunities for you to take your class out on local visits as well as those further afield. Are you within distance of a farm visit? It is really easy to check out farms which encourage school visits by simply going to our website and checking the ‘Visits’ link, the ‘MegaMap’ and ‘The Co-operative Schools to Farms’ page.

Work with pupils of all ages to ‘open up the world outdoors’ to them. Take every opportunity even if it is only going to sit outside for story time. Let them enjoy moments of quiet reflection when they simply use all their senses to take in the natural world around them. Even if you are in a built up city school, you have air and a little space outside, don’t put off using it simply because there is a busy street outside the walls! Towns have their own inhabitants from the animal, bird, insect and plant worlds. Use the opportunity to help pupils compare the lives and habitats of creatures living in towns and countryside.

If you can take your pupils to visit a farm, all the better. Now you really have an opportunity to let them make comparisons between town and country. Younger pupils don’t need notebooks or clipboards. Let them just use what they always have with them – eyes, ears, nose, hands – to explore what is around them (tastebuds too if they are lucky enough to eat or drink at a working farm). By all means let them have a short time to draw a picture of something they like best but otherwise let them explore unencumbered. You can take photographs, video, make sound recordings and take useful notes. When you get back to the classroom the children only need their memories to get them started on whatever you plan…and you have the perfect resources to extend their learning in whichever way you want!

You can certainly expect your KS2 pupils to work a little harder with a clipboard but they still need plenty of time just to ‘be’ on their visit or their memories will be confined to pencil sketches and notes on a screwed up piece of paper. Extend the ‘local’ knowledge they glean from their visit by investigating the most successful environments for different types of farming across the country. Do they live in an area dominated by arable farming or is it dairy farming for example? Some useful map work overseeing the layout of types of farming across the whole country could then accompany their follow up work. Try www.nfuonline.com to help you plan this.

Or… perhaps you would like to place the visit within a historical context too. What better oral history could you glean than from a family whose farm dates back to earlier generations? Remember the LEAF idea of seeing each farm as unique with its own individual story. Try to ‘think outside the box’ when it comes to farm visits. There are many cross-curricular links available to you with just a little research on where you are going.

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What’s in season in May?

Vegetables and herbs: Asparagus, new potatoes, spinach, primo cabbage, cauliflower, new carrots, broad beans, samphire (a sea vegetable), sorrel, mint, parsley
Fruit and nuts: Rhubarb, early raspberries
Game: Duck
Fish: Sea trout, sea bass, lemon sole, sardines, spring lobster, haddock, prawns
Cheese: English soft cheeses, Sharpham, Bonchester and Wheatland

For more information on sourcing your food locally click on the link to ‘Growing’ on the home page

What’s happening on the farm?

As the weather becomes warmer dairy herds and beef cattle are now turned out into the fields. Calving continues and the lambing season draws gradually to a close. Arable and vegetable farmers are busy preparing fields in earnest now; ploughing, digging, harrowing and marking out their land in preparation for planting out. Fertiliser is spread to aid spring growth and many vegetables including potatoes, mangetout, beans, carrots and cabbages are being planted out. The trees in the fruit farms are beginning to blossom.

May is a busy time in the farming world. The lambing season is drawing to a close but all the new arrivals must be tailed and tagged. Sheep shearing begins and now farmers must keep a close eye on their flocks to check no parasites lodge in their animals’ fleeces. The grass on dairy farms is now beginning to grow fast and dairy farmers must ensure that their herds move from area to area to eat the grass when it is at its best. The first silage of the year is made up to be stored for cattle feed next winter. There will still be some calves arriving and the breeding season for cattle also begins once more. At the same time the cleaning out of livestock buildings must take place and fencing, wall and general farm repairs are constantly needed.

For more information on the importance of farming today click on the link to ‘Resource Bank – Farming Matters’ on the home page

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Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF) has organised another Open Farm Sunday for Sunday 1st June. This is a wonderful opportunity for everyone, young and old, to enjoy being outdoors, discovering at first hand what it means to be a farmer. Each event will be unique, based on each farm’s individuality, and there will be all sorts of activities available from nature trails and farm walks to tractor and trailer rides and pond dipping. There will also be plenty of opportunities to taste farm produce. This is a perfect opportunity to bring learning alive for children (and adults too) and we hope teachers will help encourage parents to take advantage of this exciting day.

LEAF is a national charity that also helps to create a better public understanding of farming through a national network of Demonstration Farms, Innovation Centres and initiatives like Open Farm Sunday. It aims to bring farmers and consumers together to raise awareness of how farmers are working in harmony with nature to produce good food with environmental care.

For more information and to see a clip from an Open Farm Sunday event go to www.farmsunday.org

The Staffordshire County Show will take place on the 28 – 29th May. Events include The Quack Pack sheepdog and duck display, parades of livestock, horses, hounds and beagles, young farmers’ float and exhibition, children’s farm, ferret road show, falconry display, sheep shearing competition, bees and honey show, a cookery theatre and food hall. Go to www.staffscountyshowground.co.uk for more details.

Last chance to Find the Real Shaun – Get out into the countryside this spring and see if you can find the real Shaun the Sheep. If you have a 5 – 12 year old, why not head out into the countryside with your camera and have fun trying to find Shaun? When you find a look-a-like, simply take a photograph and enter it into the ‘Find the Real Shaun’ competition by the 8th June 2008, at www.yearoffoodandfarming.org.uk. For the best Shaun the Sheep look-a-like, there is a chance to win an exclusive framed still from the Shaun the Sheep series, signed by the director, and a free family ticket to visit a national farm attraction. For all the details visit www.yearoffoodandfarming.org.uk

The Active Kids Get Cooking Challenge 2008 – the deadline for the Active Kids Get Cooking Challenge is approaching fast. The challenge is an annual cooking competition for primary, special and secondary school aged children across the UK. The challenge this year is to ‘create a two course meal (main and dessert) that can be shared with your friends and that uses local/regional ingredients’. Regional winners will receive £100 and attend a special celebration event in London where they will find out if they have become overall UK winner. Overall UK primary and secondary winners receive £500! The closing date is 23 May 2008. We are still waiting for our first entry from Northern Ireland. Did you know you can also claim free certificates for all pupils who complete the challenge, whether or not they enter the competition? For all the details, go to: www.activekidsgetcooking.org.uk

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Reception and KS1:

One lovely project for all children but which is easily manageable with even the very youngest is a ‘Friendship Weave’. This is a lovely way to keep the memory of a farm or outdoor visit alive for long after you get back to school.

You will need a large piece of hessian with a large hole weave (usually easily obtainable from school art suppliers). Fix your hessian to a pole or bamboo garden cane and hang it with ribbons or similar so that it reaches the floor in an easily accessible area of your classroom. Keep a box or basket next to it into which you and your pupils can place any weaving materials you want to use. Your pupils will want to weave what they bring in themselves so you need to plan this, along with allocated ‘weaving times’.

The rules are simple. The only things which can be woven must be natural but children can be as creative as they like within these boundaries. An outdoor visit will be a perfect location to start building your stock of materials but you can also send a letter home so parents are aware of what their children should be looking for. You can collect all sorts of suitable materials such as long grasses, feathers, wheat stalks, straw, hay, twigs, leaves, sheep’s wool (often found snagged on wire fences), seaweed, razor shells, driftwood etc. Children just weave their materials through holes easily made in the hessian, they need only their fingers.

You can also use flowers or vegetables etc. but remember to remind the children that these will become dry and possibly smelly. If you decide to include this sort of thing you will get some wonderful weaving patterns from trailing flowers such as nasturtiums. Lavenders will add a wonderful scent to your classroom but…

please make sure you do not use anything that is poisonous!

Some common toxic plants are listed below but this is not an exhaustive list so please ensure you check first. Include a reminder along these lines in your letter home to parents. For a clearly illustrated guide, complete with colour photographs go to www.realgardeners.co.uk/goodbadpois/poisonous_plants

Some or all parts of the following plants are toxic if eaten: buttercup, deadly nightshade, delphinium, elderberry, foxglove, hellebore, honeysuckle, hyacinth, jasmine, laburnum, larkspur, lilies, lily of the valley, monkshood, potato stems, privet, rhododendron, sweet peas. There are more so please consult the website.

Apart from this, you should follow health and safety guidelines by ensuring your pupils always wash their hands after working with their materials. Please check the health and safety guidelines in the Visits section of this website.

Key Stage 2:

An exciting idea for older (KS2) pupils is simple wool top weaving. You can do this with natural sheep’s fleece which makes it a very special experience if you can incorporate it with follow up work from a farm visit. Just working with fleece will illustrate to your pupils the water-resistant qualities of the wool and their hands will become soft from the oil residue in the fleece. You will need the enthusiasm to search out a good contact to get the fleece but you can work with even a small bag of it if necessary, making three or four small (group) felts.

The work can also be done with professionally dyed ‘wool tops’ but it is exciting to use the real thing if you are trying to give the work an environmental slant. You will either need helpers or, otherwise, you should allow some time to demonstrate the process.

You will need:

  • Some strands of fleece (as much as you can get)
  • Squares of white sheeting or similar (roughly 30 x 30cm but smaller will do)
  • Needles, pins and thread
  • A collection of small natural bits and pieces such as twigs, flower heads, leaves, very small stones, feathers, wood bark, bracken etc.

Using one square of sheet lay out several rows of fleece then weave more rows in and out of them. This is just a simple weave, just as you might weave a paper square or oblong.

When complete add some of their natural pieces either randomly or in a design. Simply push them into place in the wool. Most things will just stick in place.

Cover the weave with another piece of sheet and carefully pin the weave inside so it does not move about. Next fasten the weave securely within the two pieces of sheeting with large tacking stitches. Remove the pins.

Now you (the teacher or a helpful parent) must take the weaves home and wash them in the hottest wash on your washing machine. Bring them back to school to dry and when they are ready remove the stitches and sheeting. Inside you will find some really amazing pieces of natural art! This is a fabulous project, well worth any trouble it takes to resource and plan.

If you choose to work with dyed ‘wool tops’ try www.texere.co.uk which is a wonderful old mill and shop in Bradford. They have many bins with bargain buys and an internet postal service. From the home page go down to ‘Shopping by craft’, click on ‘Feltmaking’ then scroll down to the link for dyed wool tops.

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The school vegetable garden :

  • Apply mulch to your soil to increase its capacity to retain water. Find a way to collect rainwater for watering.
  • Don’t water your plants in the heat of the day and water the soil not the leaves. Make sure the soil is really wet and it is not just the surface that gets wet. Remember you want the water to reach the roots.
  • Plant out any remaining seedlings in trays. Caulifllowers, marrow, savoy cabbages, onions, celery, leeks and celeriac may need protection overnight a little longer. Plant out outdoor tomatoes and even try a pumpkin for your own class or next year’s class in the autumn.
  • If you are growing strawberries make sure you place straw between the plants to protect the fruits from the ground. Pluck out any runners on raspberry plants and offer them or extra strawberry runners to parents or friends of the school.
  • Are you making sure that all school food scraps are going onto a compost heap? Staff teabags can go on it too! Compost heaps are an important way to help us recycle and an important part of the school vegetable garden. You can find full guidance and teachers’ notes at www.sector39.co.uk/resources/Composting PackKS2.pdf through www.recyclenow.com. The School Council could devise an effective way to collect all those apple cores from the playground but ‘collectors’ will need to be careful of wasps in the summer!

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Curriculum links:

If you structure a programme of learning around this newsletter’s focus on growing and the related curriculum activities, you would have the opportunity to visit the following links in programmes of study. Please be aware that you would have to ensure coverage of the links through your own planning.

Science:
KS1: Science 2-Life processes & living things: 1b, c; 2a, b, e, f, g; 3a, b, c; 5a, b, c;
 Breadth of study (Sc 2): 2a, b;
 KS2: Science 2-Life processes & living things: 1a, b, c; 2b, f; 3a, b, c; 5a, b, c;
 Breadth of study (Sc 2): 2a, b;

PSHE:
KS1: Knowledge, skills & understanding: 2a, b, g; 3g;
Breadth of study: 5 e, g; Breadth of study: 5 d;
 KS2: Knowledge, skills & understanding: 1, e; 2a, j; 3b, e, g;
Breadth of study: 5e;

Art and Design:
KS1: 2a, b, c; 3a, b; 4a, b;
 Breadth of study: 5a, b, c;
 KS2: 2a, b, c; 3a, b; 4a, b;
2a, b, c; 3a, b; 4a, b;

Geography:
KS1: Knowledge, skills & understanding: 1a, c, d; 2a; 3a, d; 4a;
 KS2: Knowledge, skills & understanding: 1a, b, c; 2a, b, d; 3a, c, d, e, f, g; 4a, b; 5a, b;

English:
KS1: Knowledge, skills & understanding: 1a through to f; 2a through to e; 3 a through to e;
 Breadth of study: 9a, b; 10a, b, c;
 KS2: Knowledge, skills & understanding: 1 a through to e; 2 a through to e; 3 a through to c;
 Breadth of study: 9c; 10a, b, c.

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Farming and Countryside Education (FACE)

Farming and Countryside Education (FACE) is a registered charity which aims to educate children and young people about food and farming in a sustainable countryside. FACE aims to meet these educational needs by working with members and partners to promote visits to farms. The charity provides a one-stop enquiry service for teachers which includes extensive high-quality curriculum resources, support from their team of Regional Education Co-ordinators, links with farmers and the rural industries and training for teachers.

The Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens (FCFCG)

The Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens (FCFCG) is a charity that supports, promotes and represents city farms and community gardens, including more than 60 school farms, throughout the UK.

On the 28th April FCFCG and Year of Food and Farming patron Prince Charles visited a city school in Coventry to see how it uses its farm to bring alive learning about growing food, healthy eating and caring for the environment. The visit to Cardinal Wiseman School highlighted the wide variety of ways young people experience learning outside of the classroom, especially those pupils who learn best by practical application of concepts and theory.

The Country Trust

The Country Trust aims to bridge the gap between urban and rural communities by showing the working countryside to children, their teachers and parents from inner city areas. It works to widen horizons, enhance appreciation of and respect for others through first hand experience of rural life. For more information go to www.countrytrust.org.uk

National Insect Week 2008

National Insect Week 2008 (23-29 June) is an initiative of the Royal Entomological Society, and aims to educate and inspire people of all ages about the wonders of the insect world. Activities are planned throughout the week, including hundreds of events around the country, online insect surveys, an insect photography competition, and a series of public lectures about insect life presented in UK cities. National Insect Week 2008 is sponsored in part by the Environment Agency and is working with a wide range of partners. Visit www.nationalinsectweek.co.uk for information on the campaign and to find out how you can get involved.

Send a Cow is launching its 2008 ‘African Gardens Competition’ to get children growing their own vegetables using African-style techniques. By using African garden designs, such as bag and keyhole gardens, pupils can make food links, compare with faming in the UK and appreciate growing and eating their own produce. There are lots of learning materials online, including videos, presentations, animations and lesson plans, all at: www.sendacow.org.uk/africangardens

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Moor Edge Primary School

Moor Edge Primary School actively encourages and promotes healthy eating and lifestyles to all pupils. Year 3 and 4 have visited White House Farm to learn about where food comes from. It is hoped that by teaching the children where there food comes from and by giving the practical experience of visiting a farm they will develop healthier attitudes towards food.

www.yearoffoodandfarming.org.uk/spaces/moor-edge-primary/

Our Lady and St Patrick’s Catholic Primary School

Once a week reception class pupils from this school are taken out in the school mini-bus to an interesting location to learn outside of the classroom in a practical manner. Last term the children went picking autumn fruits and were very busy making prints of the different fruits. Much of the curriculum at Our Lady and St. Patrick’s is linked in with food growing and the children regularly visit a local farm to see the harvest, the young animals and feed the orphan lambs. The children grow vegetables in their school garden and they had an excellent crop of lettuce last summer.

www.yearoffoodandfarming.org.uk/spaces/outandabout1957/

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Some facts you might like to know when you visit a farm:

  • A pig’s squeal can reach 115 decibels which is the same as a jumbo jet when it is taking off – so keep your ears covered if the pigs get noisy!
  • Cows have an acute sense of smell – they can smell something from six miles away so they will know you are coming!
  • You can’t have a conversation with male ducks I’m afraid! They can’t quack!

Sources:

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