From the teacher: Farm in a Box

9 August 2021

The Farm in a Box experience is a fantastic resource that brings to the classroom an interactive teaching and learning tool for immersing the children into real-life learning!

At Scunthorpe Church of England Primary School, the majority of the children have never been to a farm. They have no idea of where their food comes from, except the local shop or foodbank. They have only seen animals in a book or on TV and they have certainly not met a real-life farmer or shepherdess. In the highest deprivation area of a traditional steel-making town, the opportunities for green space are minimal. This is one of the reasons the Farm in a Box is just brilliant!

We have worked closely with Verity, our Country Trust Coordinator to make sure she knew what we wanted to achieve through this project for each year group across the school. A key element of the box is that it not only links to the curriculum but also is designed to develop language and communication skills and well-being activities are woven in too. Every child in my school has been completely engrossed in the bespoke activities which have allowed them to explore using their senses and first-hand experiences, along with high-quality activities with all of the resources there, in the Box!

My Top tips for using Farm in a Box;

• Allow time for all staff to look through the resources and plans to make sure the children get the most from the box
• Ask questions yourself, the continuous professional development opportunity is real for staff too
• Allow plenty of time, you will need more time than you originally planned for if you embrace the direction the resources and questions may take you
• Map out a plan for the order you will complete the activities in
• If you have links with a Country Trust Coordinator, don't be afraid to ask for support. We've found Verity to accommodate our needs - just ask the expert!

I was very impressed with the knowledge and understanding of the curriculum demonstrated within each of the Boxes. In Early Years, the wide variety of resources allowed the staff to take the learning into all areas of the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) provision with lots of language and vocabulary building opportunities as well as continuous provision planning and ideas.

In Year Two, the Farm in a Box provided the catalyst for further learning experiences in many different curriculum areas such as making bread, retelling the story of The Little Red Hen and creating a graph to record the data collected from a survey.

Further up the school, the staff used the Farm in a Box to enhance careers week. The Box contained a 'day in the life of a farmer', accessible information and a ready to go presentation about the range of jobs in agriculture and advice on the qualifications and routes the children could take. This is really important for our children, living on the edge of rural Lincolnshire where opportunities to work in agriculture are very real.

The time and effort taken to make sure each box is exactly what the class teacher has asked for shows a great commitment to the quality of the learning experiences Verity prides herself in providing. Each box is filled to the brim with bespoke activities to motivate and challenge the children.