Latest News
Who says never work with children or animals?
Over 1000 pupils from secondary schools in Devon descended on Bicton College for a Festival of Food and Farming.
This exciting day in the Year of Food and Farming was a collaborative event inspired and funded by Aimhigher, hosted by Bicton College; invitations to schools were sent out by the Education Business Partnership with Exeter College’s involvement to provide hospitality and catering demonstrations.
The visit was based on a journey from field to fork and commenced with a walk through the grounds down to the Bicton College farm – with police assisting the road crossing due to the numbers involved! At the farm, pupils were taught about the raising of animals, the care involved and the age they would be slaughtered.
Starting with entering a calf pen to handle the week old calves the pupils then moved on to learn about the beef cattle and the dairy herd and saw the milking parlour.
Leaving the farm after a much needed hand wash, returning through the parkland the pupils passed through an exhibition of tractors from old to new with Bicton students on hand to answer questions such as how many gears does a tractor have? , how big are the tyres?
As this is also the International Year of the Potato, the journey then took the pupils to the walled garden where each school were to plant potatoes with pupils split into groups of ten and given the task of then deciding in teams of five who would be a measurer, two diggers, a planter, a fertiliser under the supervision of more horticultural Bicton students. The pupils relished the chance to be competitive amongst their peers with each team naming and marking their own plot. Bicton College will in time, when the potatoes are ready, dig up each separate plot to see which team of five had the biggest yield.
From the walled garden the pupils then made their way to the exhibition hall where they could take part in various activities Exeter College had created for them about the food and hospitality industry. They could taste savoury and sweet stir fried food and have a go at silver service using revels, maltesers and bread sticks against the clock. The other exhibitors were Mole Valley Farmers, Farming and Country Education (FACE), Aimhigher and Bicton College.
Outside the pupils then received their free Bicton sausage in a roll – last year’s pigs now in sausage form! The day was reported on by local newspapers and also ITV South West who broadcast the event on the Good Friday evening news http://www.itvlocal.com/westcountry/news/.
Bicton principal Louise Twigg said the day was a useful educational tool, adding: "Teachers are tying it into the curriculum. The children have fact sheets, and are ticking boxes on issues from numeracy to health and safety."
Rachel Cude, 13, from the Teign School in Newton Abbot, said: "We learned a lot of things, particularly about how animals are handled and raised."
But for others, the day may have also provided guidance on a future career.
Kimberley Marchant, 14, who is taking a GCSE in food technology at West Exe Technology College in Exeter, said: "I would be interested to go into anything to do with food and farming."
|
