WHAT should be the aim of school education?
It’s not really in the remit of this column to answer that one, but there are several unarguable aspects to a good education on which everyone could agree. It should not be entirely about the accumulation of academic facts, for example, or be just an exam factory, or be all about I.T and squatting over a computer immersed in the virtual reality of the on-line world, or wrapping children up so carefully in cotton wool that they are unable to cope with unstructured, outside activities and getting dirty.
Equally important is what it should be about. Not just teaching how to live, how to learn and how to reason, but also — especially in our modern world where a child’s links to nature and the countryside can easily become attenuated or completely broken — to learn about where food comes from (i.e. not from the supermarket) and how it is grown and how to grow food for oneself; useful skills in a darkening and uncertain world.
All of that is what Sprouts Farm Club is about, the initiative of Grace Crake and her family at La Cornetterie Farm, St Martin, which is now in its 11th year.
Put simply, the club encourages children to learn, to play and to grow (both in maturity and in the literal sense of growing food).
In Grace’s words: ‘Schools are already making big changes to help children make healthier food choices, but we wanted to take this one step further, by showing children they can grow their own produce. Students can develop their understanding in farming, where their food comes from and also the value of growing.
‘Coming to a working farm to learn and grow can also be linked with so many core areas within the curriculum (not to mention being really fun as well!)’
Wearing another hat, Grace does the marketing for the Market Traders’ Association, of which her father, Bill Davies (of the ‘Just William’ fresh produce stall) is the chairman. The Davies family are deeply rooted in local food production and local farming; Sprouts Farm Club comprises courses for school pupils that take place on their own land in St Martin, as well as holiday clubs, Saturday clubs, and after-school activities. At the time of writing, an Easter holidays club was in progress and there are activities for the May half-term, summer holidays and October half-term.
‘I like working on the land,’ Grace said, ‘it’s in my genes. ‘But it didn’t make sense for me to go full pelt into an apprenticeship and I thought it made more sense to do something that I know I was really good at – teaching. Also, I had access to land and an open space that schools do not necessarily have… it all seemed to fall into place.’
The Club focuses on how to grow vegetables and how to look after farm animals (there is a big flock of chickens and several pig families). But there is also considerable open space for the children to enjoy: a picnic area, an old lavoir, a natural amphitheatre suitable for presentations, an area where they can hold their own market and sell their own fresh produce, and lots of opportunity to learn about the countryside: woods, fields and the little animals for which this part of the Island is their home.
There is plenty of flexibility to include different projects, or suitability of content for primary and secondary level students, or different focuses – environmental or horticultural.
‘What do I remember most from school?’ she asked, ‘It was when I was outside! Children don’t get enough of that: unstructured play, just being outside, getting their hands dirty and being inquisitive about the natural environment.’
As we talked, a holiday day club was drawing to a close. The sun shone, it was pleasantly warm, and the children were enjoying running around cheerfully in the open air, playing a variation of ‘tag’: ‘We call it “chicken coop”, Grace said. ‘There are balls hidden everywhere, which are the eggs. The chickens have to guard them and protect them, and the foxes try to catch the chickens. Farm school is really educational, but without them realising it!’
The core aspects of the courses include growing produce – organically. At the start of a six-week course they can plant their vegetables, and by the end they can dig them up and take them home. They learn to grow 12 different types of produce from a selection, from planting to harvesting, and they learn the routine of looking after farm animals.
‘Maybe when the kids first arrive, they really don’t want to be on a farm; they think at first, it’s not really their thing. Then they find activities that interest them. It might not just be plants or animals, but designing egg boxes and marketing eggs, for example, or other aspects of agriculture, not just the hands-on stuff.’
Moving to a nearby area, we went to see and feed the pigs: ‘The piglets are really friendly with the kids,’ Grace said. ‘I wanted to be a pig farmer when I was little, and I went to help our neighbour, Di Best, look after her two beautiful Gloucester Old Spots. I thought my dad’s farm was dead boring, as there were no animals.’
The pig enclosures are rotated around the farm and the pigs turn over the ground – the best sort of field preparation you can get.
‘If I can get one kid to think differently about their food, or get Mum to shop differently, I will feel I have achieved something,’ Grace said, ‘and if as a result of this they decide to buy local, so much the better!’
*For more information about Sprouts Farm Club, see the website:
www.thefarmschoolinitiative.com/sprouts-farm-club
- This article was first published in the Jersey Evening Post and is republished with their kind permission
