Life on a farm: teaching resources and activities for schools
Teaching resources and activities for schools to use to help pupils understand how food is produced and processed and to encourage a healthy lifestyle with a balanced diet.
Hertfordshire County Council has been working closely with The Hertfordshire Agricultural Society to develop a long term agricultural educational offer within the county. The Agricultural Society have been running the highly successful County Show for over 130 years.
Starting in 2022 Hertfordshire Agricultural Society in partnership with Hertfordshire County Council and Hertfordshire’s Primary Heads Forum has run an annual Schools Food and Farming Day for Year 6 pupils which has provided an interactive experience enabling children to explore, touch and taste different foods and learn about healthy eating. The aim is for the Day to get bigger and bigger with more Year 6 pupils attending each year.
The objectives of the Hertfordshire Schools Food and Farming Day are:
- to promote and understanding of food production and processing
- to ensure the importance of agriculture remains a focus for primary schools within the county by providing a fun and interactive experience educating young people about agricultural methods and techniques
- to support the self-discovery of food and its origin whilst promoting the benefits of high quality locally produced food
- to encourage healthy lifestyles and informed choices in terms of a balanced diet and nutrition of different foods.
- to facilitate and encourage an informed and high-quality level of environmental education in Hertfordshire schools by supporting an enriched curriculum offer
A huge part of the Schools Day is education. Schools are provided with links to resources including lesson plans in advance through the Schools Food and Farming Day for Year 6 pupils web page which has links to resources including lesson plans.
Resources
These helpful resources are available for all schools to use and provide valuable information about food and its production and healthy eating.
About Food - a fact of life - Food A Fact Of Life (resources produced and managed by British Nutrition Foundation, in partnership with the Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board (AHDB for pupils aged 3-16 years).
The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board has created a unique link for Hertfordshire schools to use called the ‘Life on the Farm Challenge’ activity pack for 7-11 year olds.
The unique link is https://bit.ly/3Gete9s Here you will find challenges to support teaching and learning around healthy eating, cooking and where food comes from.
The following are resources linked to the challenge:
Resources to support additional needs and independent living
If you work with pupils with additional needs, Food a Fact of Life have a dedicated area on the Food - a fact of life website with information, resources and guidance documents available. The Characteristics of good practice in teaching food and nutrition education to pupils with additional needs (pdf) document sets out a series of characteristics that can be adopted as part of a good practice approach by all those who teach additional needs.
Primary food projects
Food a Fact of Life: primary food projects
Each project comprises a six week scheme of learning, lesson plans and resources. All tailored to meet primary school food curricula around the UK, whether you teach food in Cooking and nutrition, Technologies or D&T
Practical food skills videos
These short videos are perfect for demonstrating key cooking skills to pupils before or during a lesson, to help them visualise what they will be doing.
Harvest Festival activity packs
Harvest Festival Activity packs have been designed by Food A Fact Of Life to support the teaching and learning around the importance of where food comes, specifically the harvesting of food. The packs contain Harvest presentations, quizzes, factsheets, activities, games and posters.
They can be downloaded using the following links below:
Harvest festival activity pack (5-7 Years)
Harvest festival activity pack (7-11 Years)
Learning Zone: Syngenta (resources aimed to bring Science and agriculture to life).
Syngenta is one of the world’s leading agriculture companies, comprised of Syngenta Crop Protection and Syngenta Seeds.
NFU Education: Farming STEMterprise
Farming STEMterprise projects for Key Stage 1 & 2 take children through each stage of setting up a farm shop business. Practical Science and Design lessons, closely tailored to each group’s programme of study, are incorporated throughout the projects and opportunities for applying Maths skills to engaging, real-life problems are embedded at each stage.