Primary school near Harborough launches 'farm school' to teach pupils about the roots of their village

A primary school near Market Harborough has launched its own 'farm school' to teach pupils about the roots of their village.

Like many local villages, Husbands Bosworth has a rich history of farming - so staff at the Husbands Bosworth CE Primary School wanted celebrate this by bringing farming back into our curriculum - and to show how it is shaping their future too.

The primary school has launched its new initiative thanks to the help of the Leicestershire Young Farmers. The chair of Leicestershire Young Farmers, Greg Parkes, along with two of his colleagues, farmers Matt Kirk and Jess Armitage, were invited to speak to the children.

The trio showed the children their mobile milk van and invited them to see a tractor and sit in the driving seat while Matt explained how farms use different machinery and why. The children also learnt about a ‘day in the life’ of a dairy farmer, as well as the different jobs associated with harvest time.

Commenting on the visit, headteacher Alan Eathorne said, “Our village is named after, and exists, because of farming and we want to celebrate our history by bringing farming back into our curriculum, but we also want our children to know how farming is shaping our future, is at the cutting edge of technology and is vitally important to our health and economic stability.

"When we asked our parents if they wanted the school to be known as one that ‘supports nature, the countryside and farming’ they all said yes – so making the decision to weave farming into our school was easy.

“One of our overriding ambitions is to break down the stereotypes that exist and to allow children to see careers like farming as relevant to them, just as working in IT or being teacher is. While many of our neighbouring schools have developed forest school as a thread in their teaching, we wanted to reflect our roots by bringing in agriculture where we could.

"We have many school families who are farmers and we’re really looking forward to working with them, alongside our own School Council members from Years 5 and 6, as we develop our ‘Farm School’ over the months and years.”