LEAF Education is launching the UK's first Farming Fortnight from 3 to 14 June 2019. The aim is for primary and secondary schools across the UK to have a fortnight’s focus on British farming and food production. With young people often being disconnected from the origins of their food, and the people behind the story of their food, the fortnight has been developed for students and their teachers to engage with and understand farming and food production. Ten-day's worth of resources for EYFS, primary and secondary are available on the Farming Fortnight webpage https://www.countrysideclassroom.org.uk/farmingfortnight
Farming Fortnight has been devised by LEAF Education and Brockhill Park School, following the teenager research programme which LEAF Education and Rothamsted Research developed during 2018. One of the main findings of the research with 1,200 12-18 year olds, and 60 teenagers on farm, was that over 35 percent of young people would like to find out more about where their food comes from and how it is produced, and another 32 percent would consider a career in this sector.
A theme that these young people highlighted was: ‘Let’s Connect’ where they wanted short activities to engage with in school settings, using their peers to help them understand. This is why the partnership between LEAF Education and Brockhill Park Performing Arts College has been so key.
The topics covered during Farming Fortnight and the # for social media developed by the students at Brockhill are:
Week 1
- Introduction to the British Countryside and food production #MarketMonday
- Arable - wheat and oats #TractorTuesday
- Sheep #WoollyWednesday
- Pigs #Oink
- Chickens (poultry) #FeatheredFriday
Week 2
- Cows – beef and dairy #MooingMonday
- Fruit and Vegetable production #TastyTuesday
- Woodland #WellyWednesday
- Jobs/careers #FutureFarming
- Programme summary to recap on what has been learnt #Farming Friday
Follow #FarmingFortnight on twitter@LEAF_Education to keep up-to-date.
