Landscove School Young Farmer’s Club

We ran our first Landscove School Young Farmer’s Club last summer. It was organised by Peter & Darran down at the farm & we are just about to begin this year’s event. Twelve Tuesdays from April to July when we all become “farmers” for an hour. I wonder how many Head Teachers do that every week?

After a lot of planning & other shananakins we’re nearly ready to start. By Friday (the official closing date 28th Mar) 18 children had signed up. This morning, 1st Apr (surprise, surprise) there were 25 who wanted to do it, so I’ve had to create a waiting list. Has farming ever been so popular? Anyway I have to go now to get organised - wellies at the ready & off we go! Hope all the mums turn up to provide the taxi power we need to get to the farm - Riverford Organic Vegetables, a mile away from the school.

Landscove C of E Primary School nestles into a hill next door to St Matthew’s Church & just above the settlement of Woolston Green. It is a glorious agricultural area where the turning seasons are obvious to all who have the privilege to live or work here. The school contains 106 delightful children aged between 4 & 11 and is split into 4 classes. The school building is a mixture of the old & the new & has a charm all of its own. The atmosphere is very positive & the caring staff do their best to nurture the natural talents developing within the children whilst providing a broad & balanced education to “tool them up” for the ever changing world in which they are growing up.

All who work & learn here are proud to part of this special little school & participate in the mini adventures that we plan into the life of the school.

And so we come to our school “Young Farmer’s Club”, not quite like a real Young Farmer’s Club. (I know more about these because my sister’s grown up kids enjoy a very full social life with their local group in West Yorkshire.) However, I decided it was a catchy name for an after school club that provides an opportunity to link the children to the rich soil of Devon each week whilst they grow vegetables & salad that will be harvested & enjoyed before we all break up for the summer hols in July! 

We all ”catch” a large proportion of the dietary habits that we will have for life during our childhood days. This project is also an attempt to make sure that we sow the seed of the importance of fresh fruit & veg within our children. We want to understand more about the process of food production & encourage them on the path towards healthy lifestyles when they are older. 

I should also mention here that we are a healthy School. Yes, this is now official because we recently achieved the Devon Healthy School Award. We also serve the best school dinners in the world. Yes…. it’s true! I know because I eat them & I don’t believe that any school anywhere could do better. These are organic & cooked by Fiona who deliversthem piping hot from Riverford every day. They are so good we won the Soil Association School Dinner of the Year Award in 2005 & Jamie Oliver actually presented us with our prize at the Good Food Show at the NEC! It was very exciting!

Anyway, that’s enough for now, time I attacked the paper mountain again!

I have started the blog so that I can share our adventures with anyone who’s interested. I’ve never done one of these before (never even looked at one actually, just heard them mentioned on the radio & thought it sounded like an interesting idea) & hope that I can learn how to put pictures on it & make it an interesting read. It will tell you what we get up to & will also be “peppered” with my own random assortment of thoughts & ramblings as the project develops. Hope you enjoy it  whilst learning more about the spirit of our special little school. Robin Smith.