Award-winning farm residential transforms children’s learning

The school in Newport, Wales blew judges away with the impact their residential had and after collecting the award at the School Travel Awards ceremony in October last year, they were given £2,000 of prize money to spend on a future educuational visit of their choice.

They decided to go back to Lower Treginnis Farm in Pembrokeshire with 24 children and three staff members to experience the Farms for City Children site for themselves.

Tania Bowden at the school shares the experience they had…

Lower Treginnis Farm represents a pinnacle of outdoor learning, offering our St Woolos children a transformative immersion into rural pedagogy.

Situated in Pembrokeshire, it holds the geographic distinction of being the most westerly farm in Wales. The unique coastal location, whilst being absolutely beautiful, was also an effective pedagogical tool. The panoramic horizon views where the land meets the ocean provide a profound sense of place, facilitating a sensory engagement that is often entirely absent from the urban educational experience and from the four walls of our classrooms.

The staff at Treginnis are experts in their fields, very enthusiastic and people who obviously love their work and sharing their farm life with children. Every child was very quickly known by name and understood as an individual. From a grant-impact perspective, Lower Treginnis offers significant scale and a commitment to inclusive pedagogy. The facility is specifically engineered to ensure equitable access to rural experiences, particularly for students with mobility or sensory requirements.

“I liked that we got to cook stuff and then we had it for our dinner”

Ben, pupil

The programme is facilitated by a multi-disciplinary team where experienced farm school leaders act as the primary pedagogical interface, translating agricultural tasks into “vocational scaffolding” for the learners.

Our children worked alongside partner farmer Aled, gaining a first-hand introduction to a professional, large-scale lamb production operation. Our children experienced the miracle of lambs being born alongside the sad reality of a still-born lamb.

This experience is then synthesized through the Farm-to-Fork cycle. Produce harvested by the children was taken into the kitchen to Sue, where the curriculum shifted to culinary education.

By preparing and cooking meals from the very produce they had tended, children developed an understanding of the circle of food production. This narrative approach reinforced the link between sustainable land management and human nutrition, transforming a simple meal into a lesson in food security and self-sufficiency.

“We saw lambs being born!”

Krishna, pupil

Tania Bowden, deputy headteacher at St Woolos said: “During our visit I was able to see that the residential experience supported the social and emotional resilience of our children.”

The combination of physical labour and structured downtime allowed for the development of skills essential for child development.

By moving beyond the constraints of the traditional classroom, the residential programme provides the “long-lasting impact” and “expansion of horizons” necessary to foster a new generation of environmentally conscious citizens. 

The beauty of this trip is that the enthusiasm, skills and curiosity it inspires has an impact back in school with projects such as our allotment and cooking sessions.

“I loved taking the donkeys for a walk”.

Lena, pupil

One of the pupils said: “I now know how to look after our seedlings and plants at the allotment now because Alan taught us.”

The connections and learning made will continue to be discovered as we continue to develop our school curriculum and pedagogy.