7-2008 Another Busy Year

We have had a full year yet again with over 1,700 children and students visiting, together with Testbourne School running the NVQ every Tuesday afternoon at the farm with first and second year students.  These visits have demonstated that we can offer students from 4  to 18 an opportunity to learn what farming is, how it covers every aspect of the curriculum and the learning and working opportunities there are in the farming industry.

We always enjoy receiving feed back from schools and have many delighted teachers and students who have written to us with their appreciation.  Next year we hope to offer more opportunities to schools and would welcome any new ideas or particular areas they would like to cover.

Due to the building of the new lambing sheds, we were unable to offer Lamb Cam this year, but will have it up and running for the lambing season in spring 2009.  Our Veggie Cam has continued to be popular with children visiting the walled garden and then returning to school to see how the garden is progressing over the year. 

In April we started our Garden Blog with Agnes the Gardener telling us about the progress of the garden, the different probems that we don't always see - pigeons, weeds and other such things.   She also keeps us informed about what is being harvested and how the weather has affected the growing and developing of the garden.

Compost Cam has been a new addition this year.  Whilst we haven't made this accessible like Veggie Cam, visiting schools are able to view the compost area via a secure web address.

In April we took part in the Marwell Science Fair.  Years 5 and 6 Children from 20 different schools were given the opportunity of learning about Rapseed Oil and how it is being produced for fuel for our tractor, which was the first in the UK to run on pre-pressed rapeseed oil.

June was our busiest month for visits.  With two estate days in one week and two or three visits from schools each week, our staff were kept extremely busy. 

We look forward to welcoming more schools in the autumn term when eventually we must get some sunshine again!