Welcome to the June 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.

Hollyoaks star takes to the farm!

Visit the Fun stuff section of the Year of Food and Farming website to see exciting video clips featuring TV soap actress Leah Hackett, who plays Tina McQueen in Channel 4’s Hollyoaks, putting on her wellies to spend a day on a farm. The videos show Leah having fun at Blaze Farm in Cheshire where she can be seen getting her hands dirty, milking cows, shearing sheep, collecting eggs and making delicious ice cream.

Back to top

As we move into summer it is definitely time to venture outdoors and make the most of every minute. Healthy living… food... countryside…environmental awareness… sustainable living…summertime… pick your own… dig your own… perhaps even gathering wild food for free.

Visiting farms to pick your own summer fruits and vegetables or dig up potatoes has long been a popular family pastime for a lazy summer weekend. It is a perfect opportunity to get outdoors to explore and appreciate our countryside. More and more of us are growing foodstuffs on allotments or at home and now is the time to reap the benefits. There is nothing quite like the squelch of a luscious strawberry just picked and popped straight in your mouth or the smell of a tomato freshly picked from the vine. At the moment gathering wild food is enjoying a new surge of popularity with several well-known chefs offering us ideas for using plants such as nettles, samphire, elderflowers and wild garlic to name but a few.

Let’s take a few minutes out to imagine ourselves outside in the countryside in summer, feeling the toasty glow of a sunny afternoon warming our skin as we stroll down a country lane and marvel as we rediscover yet again what has been there all the time. For our children, whether at home or in school, we can help them understand the environment in which they live, engendering a greater respect for what it offers up and reconnecting them to the origins of our food. It is an opportunity to explore the concept of survival through dependence on the land. Older children can begin to understand the importance of seasonality as an alternative to the current globalised food system where we can buy anything at any time of the year.

Within the school context teachers of younger children can build on family outings to pick fruit or harvest from the allotment by simply offering more of the same to be shared together in an exciting communal learning environment. For some a school visit might be their only opportunity of making the links between the countryside, food and our survival. For the youngest children you will probably find sufficient learning opportunities through visiting vegetable gardens and allotments of supportive families, grandparents or friends of the school. But… don’t neglect a walk in the countryside where you can start to open your pupils’ eyes to the facts that animals, birds, insects (and people) find their means of survival through nutrition which is all around them. Even the youngest of our children will thrill at the prospect of picking blackberries in September so why not introduce them to similar opportunities before the blackberry season rolls round.

Older pupils in Key Stage 2 can start to appreciate that there is food in abundance all around us. Looking for wild food is certainly a possibility with older, more responsible pupils but don’t undertake it without careful preparatory work and a reputable handbook or guide. We reminded you last month that some common plants are toxic and it is obviously even more important to be completely sure which these are before we consider eating them. If you do try this out you must have both a guide to toxic wildlife and plants and a forager’s handbook which will also advise you on which parts of a plant you can use and what you have to do to make them edible. There are many easily available books now which will direct you specifically to plants which you can safely pick and eat and offer you recipe ideas. Try ‘Wild Food for Free’ by Jonathan Hilton or ‘Food for Free’ by Richard Mabey both available from Amazon. The key issue, however, is that the pupils concerned have reached a stage of maturity where they realise that the safety guidelines are a necessity.

If you are contemplating a foraging outing, you must check with your head teacher and also ensure that a letter goes home to parents clearly outlining the activity. Give clear references to both the guidelines and handbook you are using. In this way parents can be reassured by checking the literature out for themselves.

For a clearly illustrated guide on toxic plants, complete with colour photographs go to www.realgardeners.co.uk/goodbadpois/poisonous_plants

The following website links will help you identify edible wild food and follow the correct guidelines for foraging and keeping within the country code:
The Botanical Society of the British Isles www.bsbi.org.uk
Low-Impact Living Initiative www.lowimpact.org

However, we reiterate the need to use a handbook which outlines every safety step you need to cover before you pick or eat any produce. Also make sure your pupils wash their hands after a countryside ramble and before preparing, cooking or eating foodstuffs. Check the health and safety guidelines of your school and in the Visits section of this website.

Some general guidelines when foraging include:

  • NEVER eat any species you are unsure of. Use a good identification guide
  • Ensure you never pick from protected sites or private land
  • Do not pick species near roadside or places where they may have been contaminated with chemicals or animal excrement etc
  • Do not pick rare species and only pick where there is abundant growth
  • Take care not to trample on or damage other wildlife while you pick
  • Only pick what you need and leave plenty for other wildlife *

*www.lowimpact.org/factsheet_wild_food.htm

Back to top

What’s in season in June?

Vegetables and herbs: Asparagus, new potatoes, green beans, broad beans, courgettes, aubergines, globe artichokes, mange-tout, peas, salad leaves, peppers
Fruit and nuts: Gooseberries, tayberries, strawberries, raspberries, cherries, redcurrants
Meat: Welsh lamb
Fish: Grey mullet, crab salmon, whitebait, sea bass, sardines, lobster, prawns
Freshwater Fish: Pike, salmon, tench, trout
Cheese: English farmhouse cheddar

The Horticultural Development Council has launched an excellent website on seasonal produce with definite ‘child appeal’.
Go to www.iminseason.com
Other good sites (although more adult in layout) are www.bbc.co.uk/food and www.caterersearch.com

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

What’s happening on the farm?

Sheep farmers are busy shearing with some employing specialist shearers from New Zealand and Australia who tour the world for work. The sale of their lambs is more important than the sale of wool as it costs nearly as much to have sheep sheared as the wool is worth. Lambs are being fattened in preparation for the main selling season which will be in a couple of months’ time. Sheep also need to have their hooves trimmed regularly or they will become overgrown and infected. They also need to be administered what is called ‘drench’ as they are prone to many internal parasites.

Spring calves are being dehorned and some dairy farmers will be buying in new animals for breeding purposes. This is known as buying in a ‘flying herd’. Cattle also need to be drenched to prevent the growth of internal parasites. Extra grass is grown in summer and saved to feed the cows in the winter. Silage is also being put aside for winter feed. This is made by packing grass into big bales which are then sealed in plastic bags to keep the air out. Otherwise the grass would turn mouldy.

Have a look at www.jimmysfarm.com for a colourful website full of information and photographs which will appeal to children.

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

Back to top

South West: A Celebration of Food and Farmers at the Eden Project - takes place Friday 20th, Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd June to celebrate the produce of Cornwall. It will be a fun packed fiesta of food exhibitions, cookery demonstrations, ‘meeting the farmers behind your food’ events, children’s workshops, pasty crimping and much more. For more information visit: www.edenproject.com and www.cornwallac.org

London: Camden Green Fair and Bike Fest is on 1st June, Regents Park, 12-7pm. Visitors of all ages will be able to enjoy a range of activities for free such as Strictly Fairtrade, the New Science tent, Sustainable Food and the Green Roadshow.
For more information contact [email protected]

South East: The South of England Show is on 5th–7th June at the South of England Showground. The show is a celebration of rural life from farming and food to crafts and entertainment. There will be a strong focus on British food with a mouth-watering array of regional produce to enjoy alongside a host of countryside attractions. The spotlight will also focus on the best in British agriculture, equestrianism, horticulture, food and drink, country crafts, sports and entertainment. Further details and advance ticket information are available on the website: www.seas.org.uk or from the South of England Centre on 01444 892700.

East of England: The Royal Norfolk Show is on 25th and 26th June, Norfolk Showground. Schools are invited to take the opportunity to plan a worthwhile education day at this agricultural show using the extensive variety of resources available. Each trail at the show provides a structure for pupils to explore and enjoy the show whilst acquiring knowledge and understanding that can be used in the classroom with the possibility of linking into existing schemes of work. Visit www.royalnorfolkshow.co.uk for further details.

North East: Children’s Countryside Day will be held on 7th June at the Glendale Showground near Wooler. Organised by the Glendale Agricultural Society, this year’s theme, ‘Soil to Supper’ aims to bridge the gap between town and country by investigating how food grows on the farm and becomes food on our plates. Through interactive demonstrations children will experience the complete cycle of food – from seed and the growing process, organic matter, how the farmer grows his crop, harvests it and how it is then incorporated into their supper. This day is free of charge to all schools attending. For more information visit www.glendaleshow.com

Back to top

Field Work

Pupils of all ages need to get outdoors this month. The countryside is alive and just by using their five senses they will learn with every step they take. Right now you will find foxgloves in full bloom and dog roses in the hedgerows. Look up and you may see buzzards climbing high in the sky and if you listen you may hear the grasshoppers in full voice. Fill your nostrils with freshly mown grass or sweet smelling wild flowers, reach out and touch the bark on trees or a soft rose petal. Just allow your pupils to sit in silence with their eyes both open and closed then ask them to describe what they experience.

Using their senses also comes high on the list if you manage to plan an outing to pick, dig or harvest fruits or vegetables. Don’t neglect giving them time to smell those tomato vines or feel the earth crumble through their fingers as they loosen freshly dug potatoes.

Early Years and Key Stage 1

A visit to an allotment or vegetable garden is an ideal place for young pupils to see food growing and ripening. They can ask questions and find out just what is involved in growing your own food. Try to bring back a few samples and just build on this ‘harvest’ from a local farm shop so that the children can sample some of the foods they have seen growing. Year 2 pupils will certainly be able to reproduce a plan or map of the garden/allotment but even children in the early years will be able to contribute to a group or class plan/map with support.

Take the opportunity to enrich your pupils’ vocabulary with words that describe sights, smells, textures. Encourage them to speak, write and draw about special moments that have captured their imaginations. Drawing and labelling the vegetables and plants they have seen will develop scientific skills. Differentiation can be simply done by providing the youngest or least able with pictures to match up to words, others with labels to add to pictures and asking the most able to draw and label by themselves. Mathematical representation through pictograms would also make an enjoyable follow-up activity.

Key Stage 2

Older pupils will still benefit from a visit to an allotment, garden or farm setting but could learn about family groupings of vegetables before the visit. * They can then present their findings in ways which could include not just detailed reports and diagrams but also mathematical representations (such as Venn diagrams) and statistics which reflect percentages of different vegetable families seen on their visit. Labelling is again a very valuable activity and pupils can be challenged to present this sort of activity in a structured way which identifies and labels different members of the various vegetable families which they find.

Use the following headings for your vegetables:
Leaf vegetables, brassicas, stalk vegetable, shoot vegetables, tubers, root vegetables, onion family, fruit vegetables, pods and seeds. You may also wish to include edible fungi and seaweeds.

*Fruit families are rather more difficult to grasp and might be better left till the children are a little older although you might like to draw pupils’ attention to the similarities and differences between common summer berries and currants, eg where they grow, which are made up of compound ‘fleshy bits’, where the seeds are found etc.

Follow-up work from a visit can also include an investigation of the different food groups that different fruit and vegetables fit into. These include carbohydrates, fibre, minerals and vitamins and why these are all essential to health. Complete this investigation with a look at the ‘Eatwell Plate’ www.eatwell.gov.uk or www.food.gov.uk (both from the Food Standards Association) or www.nutrition.org.uk (British Nutrition Foundation).

Recipe ideas for all age groups

Since we are trying to help our pupils make a real connection between the environment and the origins of their food let them enjoy food in its simplest, freshest form. Use whatever you bring back from your visit and prepare them simply. Try:

  • Freshly boiled new potatoes in their skins tossed in butter
  • Freshly boiled warm beetroot
  • Raw peas popped from pods
  • Broad beans popped from their pods and ‘skinned’
  • Freshly sliced tomatoes and cucumber
  • Freshly picked salad leaves
  • Freshly picked summer berries
  • Young grated carrots

Younger children can also learn the different skills (and the vocabulary) needed to prepare the food such as chopping, slicing, peeling, grating etc. Older children can be challenged to plan simple combinations of the foods they have to make up meals. The planning can be as simple or as challenging as you like from just a discussion right through to menu planning, preparation, cooking and serving. Don’t forget to wash your produce thoroughly first…..and remind your pupils to wash their hands too.

Back to top

The school vegetable garden

Make sure you keep watering your thirsty plants but maybe it’s also time to think about having a little fun after all your hard work. What about planning a ‘garden party’ for your gardening group or class before the end of term? After all, gardens are for sitting in and enjoying as well as working in!

What sort of party will you have? Hopefully you will be eating some of the vegetable or fruits you have grown. What will you need to go with them? Will it be a sandwich party or perhaps a pick and mix buffet? Start thinking about other ingredients you might need? Where will you sit? You might need to borrow cushions or chairs. Who will you invite? Do you have any parents who help in your class? Perhaps you would like to ask the head teacher, the caretaker or the school meals supervisors? Or perhaps you would like to ask friends from another class…. maybe a small group of younger children? It would be a great way to encourage others to start growing their own food!

Useful websites for school gardeners

The Royal Horticultural Society’s website for school gardening is full of creative ideas to inspire your school to help teach pupils about the joys of gardening and sustainable living.
Go to www.rhs.org.uk/schoolgardening

Try the Garden Organic (HDRA) site to find out about the 50th anniversary produce show to be held in July or the ‘How does your garden grow 2008’ competition. You can send in entries right up to the 1st September. Go to www.gardenorganic.org.uk/schools

Back to top

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, 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; 3a, b, c; 4a, b, c; 5a, b, c;
 Breadth of study (Sc 2): 2a, b.

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

Geography:
KS1: Knowledge, skills & understanding: 1a, b, c, d; 2a, b, c, d, e; 3b; 4a; 7a;
 KS2: Knowledge, skills & understanding: 1a, b, c; 2a, b, c, d, e, f 7a, c.

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.

Back to top

Farm Visits Learning Day

The Farm Visits Learning Day consists of a number of lesson plans and accompanying materials covering Key Stage 2 for children aged 7 to 11. The materials aim to help pupils to get the most out of a farm visit by having a day devoted to the subject in the classroom prior to visits.

The Learning Day has been produced by Learning Days Ltd as part of the Year of Food and Farming, and sponsored by Natural England and The Co-operative. It aims to support the use of the outdoors as a classroom and improve children’s knowledge about how food is produced and where it is from.

The main activity during the day is the creation of model farms by children in groups. Four topics are covered, including food production, landscape and biodiversity. The Learning Day’s lesson plans are accompanied by guidance for those hosting farm visits, which includes suggested activities and links and tips.

The Learning Day is available as a free download to all primary schools from www.learningdays.co.uk/foodandfarming.php

You are what you wheat

At Sodexo schools across the country children will be learning all there is to know about wheat at interactive workshops throughout June and July. The children will be baking bread and learning about the origin of other ingredients such as raisins, which initially start life as a grape.

To ensure a better understanding of healthy eating and food, Sodexo has also produced a ‘Facts and Fun’ booklet and Funky Food card game. The booklet contains information about healthy eating and the different food groups, a food diary, a pizza recipe and general information about wheat products. The Funky Food game consists of a pack of 32 fun food fact cards which will help children learn about different foods and their origin and nutritional benefits.

For further information visit www.yearoffoodandfarming.org.uk/spaces/sodexo/General

The Grain Chain

This newly updated resource helps children learn about healthy eating and the ‘field to fork’ cycle of how wheat is grown and used to produce breads and breakfast cereals. It offers a variety of different materials to encourage healthier eating and lifestyles.
Go to www.grainchain.com for more information.

RSPCA Farm animal resources

The RSPCA has new free farm animal resources for Early Years, KS1 & 2. Fun activities help children understand where their food comes from, the use of labelling and how consumers can make a difference to farm animal welfare. The resources tie in with the Year of Food and Farming and programmes of study for science and citizenship. Examples include:

  • Using 'Farmer Duck’by Martin Waddell to help pupils understand what a farmer needs to do for his animals.
  • An empathy building activity about long-distance transport of animals.
  • A role play activity which looks at the differences between caged, barn and free-range egg production.

Order a free full-colour farm animal photo pack to accompany the resources. You can also download them from www.rspca.org.uk/education

Food for Life Partnership

Have you checked out ‘My Food Space 2008’ yet? This project, run by the Food for Life Partnership, is a network of schools and communities across England committed to transforming food culture. Go to www.foodforlife.co.uk for all sorts of valuable information and even the chance to win an award for your school.

The Food Standards Cooking Bus

The Food Standards Cooking Bus is still travelling the country to get across healthy eating and food safety messages to schools.
To find out more go to www.food.gov.uk/healthiereating/nutritionschools/bus

Food – a fact of life

Do you need some bright photographs of different foods to inspire your pupils?
Check out www.foodafactoflife.org.uk

Back to top

Neasden Primary School, Hull

In 2007 Neasden Primary gained Heathy School Status from 2007-2010 and they are striving to achieve Eco-School status, along with a permanent Eco flag to be displayed on site. All pupils are keen to learn all they can to reduce their carbon footprints.

A home composting expert helped the Eco-council plan how to compost school waste, enabling the children to compost all the food left after preparing their healthy meals! By the 18th January 2008 the school had recycled 17,280 litres of paper and 12,960 litres of metal and plastic. The school uses recycled products for plastic benches, a fallen tree as play equipment and nature area, tree bark to suppress weeds, car tyres as play equipment and they catch rainwater to use as their foundation stage water feature.

www.yearoffoodandfarming.org.uk/spaces/neasden-primary-school

Icknield Primary School, Cambridge

Pupils at Icknield Primary School recently started an Eco Club in Key stages 1 and 2 and they are creating an eco-garden this summer. The children have identified the many different trees in the school grounds and found out what foods and other useful things you can get from trees and bushes. They planted seed potatoes at the beginning of April after watching the video on the Potatoes for Schools website. The potatoes have now popped their sprouts out of the soil and the school has two monitors a week in charge of temperature and watering. Early peas and beans planted in October have been hit by slugs so they are considering getting the beer traps out again!

www.yearoffoodandfarming.org.uk/spaces/icknield-primary/

Galleywood Infant School, Chelmsford

This school has large grounds with some lovely mature oak trees at the front. Pupils have recently developed a garden area which was designed by one of the pupils who won a local competition. The school’s next project is to develop a vegetable garden and to set up a wildlife garden and a pond. An advisor from RHS is visiting the school to help with the planning of a vegetable garden or allotment.

www.yearoffoodandfarming.org.uk/spaces/galleywood-infant-school/

Back to top

And finally as summer is definitely ‘strawberry time’

Did you know…?

  • Strawberries are the first fruit to ripen in the spring
  • Strawberries are a member of the rose family
  • There is a museum in Belgium just for strawberries
  • Legend tells us that if you find a double strawberry, break it in half and share it with someone else, you will fall in love with each other!

Sources:

Back to top