Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Its perhaps
unsurprisingly surround by more farmland and big country houses,
most likely complete with a tweed-wearing family of upper-class
toffs. But after the expected comes the unexpected.
A school. The entrance to this particular farm is via a secondary
school, namely The Warriner School. More than that in fact, the farm
is set in the school itself. Imagine how cross country would have
been if youd had to negotiate your way through a field of sheep as
well as actually running that gruelling distance.
The farm itself is 120 acres of mixed farmland, with a range of
livestock. Set in beautiful Oxfordshire countryside, in the village of
Bloxham, it is a commercial farm with produce sold through the farm
shop, including pork, beef and lamb.
The farm has a hugely educational role in the local community.
Schools, community and pre-school groups can regularly be found at
the farm as part of its outreach programme. This is part of the
farms aim to make people more aware of where their food comes
from and what processes are involved. This is particularly relevant in
this day and age where people buy food from the supermarket
without even wondering how it got there.
Walking through the farm, it would be difficult not to notice the
horse drawn vehicles, vintage machinery and agricultural
implements. These are used to illustrate historical developments in
agriculture and students also get to use them in restoration projects,
adding another hands on aspect to the learning of students at the
school.
This is not the only place that the farm honours the past: it also
boasts four ancient ridge and furrow fields, which are definitely at
There are also two geese that are owned by the farm, although they
seem to prefer spending their time running around the schools
playgrounds rather than sticking to the farm limits this just shows
how closely linked the farm and school actually are!
Much of the land the farm has is grassland that is used for grazing
the stock. Not all of the land is owned by the farm, as more than half
of it is actually rented from surrounding landowners. There is also a
paddock, which the farm is allowed to use rent-free. In the past
seven years, the farm has trebled the amount of land under its
control.
An average tour of the farm takes about half a day and this gives
you an introduction to all the available resources and facilities. The
great thing about school visits is that they can be tailor-made by the
farm to really make the most of it.
The farm has had its fair share of publicity, the most exciting of
which would arguably be His Royal Highness Prince Charles visit in
2003. The prince even took a ride on the farms horse drawn wagon.
The farm has also appeared on the BBCs long running program,
Countryfile and featured on historian Tony Robinsons The Worst
Jobs in History, which aired on Channel 4.
Funding has always been an issue here, with Local Education
Authority being withdrawn in full last year, amounting to a third of
the farms 120,000 annual budget. This has led to a push towards
a more commercial aspect in an effort to keep Oxfordshires only
school farm afloat.
Despite all this, the farm has always put nature first. Most of the
arable land has six metre grass and wildflower margins around its
fields offering a safe and sustained place for animals such as birds