Information For Schools

Country Trust Teacher Webinar December 2020

On 1st December 2020, we held a webinar for the fantastic teachers that we work with in providing high quality educational experiences for the most disadvantaged children across England and North Wales.

You can watch a recording of our webinar here, to learn:

How you can safely take your pupils to farms in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic.
All about socially-distanced educational activities we can offer.
The latest government guidance on Health & Safety for educational visits.
How your Country Trust Coordinator will support you to give your children the most fun and engaging farm experience possible.
Everything you need to know about Farm in a Box, our new programme which brings the farm to school!

The Teacher Webinar included a truly inspiring speech from our guest speaker Professor Mick Waters, who currently works with schools in the West Midlands in raising educational standards.

And, from The Country Trust: Jill Attenborough, Mary Hext, and Katie Watts, with compère Sue Thompson.

Resources

You can access the links suggested by our fantastic speakers in this Webinar Resources PDF.

You can read up on all the latest Health & Safety advice here.

The Country Trust works with schools in areas of social and economic disadvantage, and schools catering for children with Special Educational Needs.

Outdoor learning

To support our schools during the pandemic we have put together a guide for Learning Outside the classroom:

Watch the Learning Outside - Key Principles video

Read the Learning Outside - Key Principles PDF

The first of our ‘pocketful of ideas’ videos inspires teachers to take learning outside. This video gives some tips on how to get pupils to attend to the natural world and then talk about it:

Watch the video for a 'pocketful of ideas' - Speaking and Listening

Read the PDF for a 'pocketful of ideas' - Speaking and Listening

The second of our 'pocketful of ideas' focuses on learning maths outdoors. These activities make use of pupil’s natural inquisitiveness by challenging them to use their numeracy skills to find record breaking trees in the school grounds.

Read the PDF for a 'pocketful of ideas' - Maths: Measuring Trees

Watch the video for a 'pocketful of ideas' - Maths: Measuring Trees

The third of our 'pocketful of ideas' introduces four different activities designed to show pupils different breathing techniques for wellbeing.

Read the PDF for a 'pocketful of ideas' - Breathing Activities for Wellbeing

Watch the video for a 'pocketful of ideas' - Breathing Activities for Wellbeing

The Country Trust has created 'Grow for it!' packs for Young Carers. These colourful booklets are filled with fun, creative activities centred around farming, gardening and growing.

View the 'Grow for it!' pack PDF

Farm in a Box Online

As part of our programme, Farm in a Box Online, our host farmers introduce us to their livestock and crops in a wonderful video.

Watch it now

You can learn more about farmers and the food they grow by doing this quiz, which accompanies the video.

Take the Farm Quiz

Partner websites

You can access an excellent collection of teaching resources on the following websites:

Countryside Classroom

FACE

Visit My Farm

Learning Away - Brilliant Residentials

The Council for Learning Outside the Classroom

Open Futures

Warburtons Teaching Resources webpage

Farm websites

Lathcoats farm

Romshed Farm

Kit lists for children

The Country Trust strongly recommends that all pupils and adult helpers wear wellies on Farm Discovery visits to livestock farms. See flyer here

How do you build a welly bank? Here's a flyer you can use in its entirety or just copy and paste the wording, and send it home with pupils to get parents and carers to find you some wellies

How to build a Welly Bank

Here we list items your child will need when particpating in one of our following activities:

Food Discovery

Farm Discovery

Countryside Discovery Residentials

Health and Safety resources

You can download the following Country Trust forms:

Cooking sessions and food tasting information request form

Cooking sessions and food tasting consent form

You will find helpful information on the following site:

Visit My Farm

Information about schools

Two useful resources to help schools find out whether they fit our criteria can be found here:

Compare school and college performance (Ofsted school comparison tool)

Identify schools that appear in the lowest quartile of the Index of Multiple Deprivation

Information about outdoor learning

Education Today is the only business magazine targeting the entire education sector from primary to adult education. In May 2016, they published the following about The Country Trust and outdoor learning:

http://www.education-today.co.uk/index.php/into-the-great-outdoors/

Garden Life teamed up with The Country Trust to create an informative article, not only highlighting the benefits to outdoor learning but also with an aim to encourage schools to get more involved. Read on to find out what we’ve been up to:

gardenlife.shedstore.co.uk/encouraging-outdoor-learning-funds-projects-across-uk/

gardenlife.shedstore.co.uk/getting-outside-with-the-country-trust/