Intent

At Ridgeway, we recognise the importance of outdoor environments and the positive impact on our children. We know that this has many benefits for children’s learning, health, and development, including supporting emotional regulation and overall sense of wellbeing.

Farm School is a long-term programme, combining in-school activity with off-site visits over a number of years, to help children’s personal, social and emotional development (PSED). It involves a variety of teaching and learning activities including crafts, games, exploring, play, and manual work such as farming and gardening tasks. Farm School is purposefully less “formal” than classroom learning, with flexibility in plans to follow children’s interests, play being a key part of learning, and discussion positively encouraged. Farm School is based on the view of education as the holistic development of pupils and recognises that academic achievement, knowledge and skills acquisition, and PSED are all intrinsically linked. The Farm School curriculum focuses on pupil’s PSED, understanding that this will have broader benefits.

Implementation

Our outdoor curriculum aims to help children gain skills in four key areas.

Resilience & self-regulation:

The format, activities and expectations of Farm School allow pupils the time and space to overcome difficulties. To enable this, pupils build up familiarity and confidence with both space and staff. They are then presented with achievable challenges appropriate to their skill level. Pupils agree their own ground rules and expectations of themselves, each other, and staff. With guidance, these rules ensure that pupils have the time and freedom to process and deal with their emotions if they are angry, upset, etc.

Emotional expression:

Reflection forms a critical part of Farm School. Staff facilitate appropriate techniques for pupils to consider their emotions, their struggles and their achievements. Pupils are able to speak freely about how they feel and given opportunities to express themselves in a variety of ways, thus negating the need for disruptive behaviour. “Negative” emotional states are not punished, but staff work with pupils to ensure their basic needs are met and emotional states can improve.

Choice & independence:

Pupils have an element of control over their own learning. Many activities will include options and choice for pupils to gain ownership of their learning activities. More importantly, pupil-led activity is an integral part of Farm School, where pupils repeatedly have the time and scope to carry out a wide variety of activities and the freedom to choose what suits their interest. Though guided by the staff, pupils can follow their own interests and may choose to sustain practice at one activity or sample a broad range. This freedom gives pupils greater independence and responsibility for their learning and can lead to deeper understanding.

Team work:

Farm School facilitates a wide variety of activities where collaboration is essential. Pupils work together to accomplish bigger challenges such as feeding or mucking out farm animals and growing vegetables. These activities could not be accomplished alone, and so demonstrate the power of, and necessity, for working with others. Pupils learn and practice the necessary communication and cooperation skills needed for this.

Impact

Children at Ridgeway will encounter and experience a wide range of outdoor learning opportunities across the wider curriculum. With a creative approach to getting our children achieving their learning objectives outside of the classroom, we hope to:

• develop reflective and inquisitive thinking along with problem-solving approaches in ‘real’ situations
• develop resilience, adaptability and a determination to see things through
• allow children to become more able to identify hazards and risks
• develop a love, appreciation and respect for nature and all that is living
• develop an understanding of how we can look after our environment
• develop self-awareness, confidence and self-esteem
• develop a lifelong love of the outdoors
• develop collaborative-working and communication skills
• provide positive health benefits – both physically and mentally
• ultimately help them achieve skills in the four key areas above.