Farmers for a week: Farms for City Children

Last November, students from Harris Primary Academy Peckham Park had the unique opportunity to spend an immersive residential week at Farms for City Children farm Lower Treginnis in Pembrokeshire, Wales. This transformative opportunity was made possible by donor support. 

Year 6 students from Harris Primary Academy Peckham Park had the chance to feed and learn how to take care of farm livestock, enjoyed coastal walks whilst learning about biodiversity, harvested crops from the fields using the produce to cook meals for their friends, and helped produce labels for the farm produce that will be sold to the public to raise funds for future farm residential visits.

Farms for City Children exists to remove the barriers that prevent children and young people having meaningful access to the natural world. Through their food, farming, and nature-connected wellbeing offer, the charity empowers the next generation to experience the physical and mental health benefits of being in the countryside, and to see themselves as the custodians of the landscape for generations to come.

The work that Farms for City Children do allows students who have grown up in the city to have access to residential trips to farms such as Lower Treginnis. These children would not have the opportunity to access these amazing rural residentials if not for the work of the charity. 

Enabling children from under served communities, Farms for City Children offers the experience and adventure of working together on farms in the heart of the British countryside. 

Harris Primary Academy Peckham Park has a large proportion of students who are in receipt of free school meals, uniforms, and who report to live in “non secure” housing. Many of the families from the Academy are unable to allow their children to take part in opportunities such as this trip to Lower Treginnis Farm without the direct support of Farms for City Children. 

Being on the farm gives each child or young person that space to just be. With reduced stress levels, increased freedom and more meaningful interactions and connections, young people return home with greater resilience and an enormous sense of pride as a result of being a “Farmer for a Week".

 

Children return happy and fulfilled, walking a little taller with knowledge, skills, and expertise that they did not have when they set off from home. They will never forget the memories they make, the relationships they cultivate or the way that they felt about themselves as they flourished through a week of “muck and magic” at Farms for City Children.

The benefit this week has on children's lives and learning lasts well beyond their visits to the farm: they learn skills such as resilience, team building and independence – as well as experiencing life well beyond what they will be used to day to day, at home in London. Some of these children will remember these opportunities forever and some will realise employment opportunities they never knew existed. None of this would be possible without generous donors, and without Farms for City Children.

We saw a growth in confidence and the children were willing to do things they wouldn’t have done before.

^{Teacher, Harris Primary Academy Peckham Park}