Making your visit successful |
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| Dos | Don'ts | Comment |
| Give us a ring beforehand to ensure we can meet your needs | Do not bring groups that are too large - they will not enjoy themselves as much | We can take a maximum of two groups at a time, each no more than around 15 children |
| You will need to visit us and produce a risk assessment before your actual trip (we provide basic risk assessments for our activities) | Do not assume this is a toy farm | We have over 200 hundred cattle, over 300 sheep, and have lots of tractors and other large machinery that is being used every day |
| Ensure the children (and yourselves) have good footwear for rough and possibly wet ground - wellies are good, sandals are not. Please bring spare clean shoes for indoors. Trousers are good at all times rather than bare legs. Also bring a rain coat and warm clothing in cooler weather. | Do not wear shorts or skirts | Trousers are best when walking through farm land as it stops any chance of catching ticks |
| Get involved and enjoy yourselves as well as the children. And ask us anything you want | Do not leave it all to us | Get involved. Ensure we bring out the things you need for your objectives. You know the children better than we do |
| Do look around and see those things that others do not. And listen. | Do not let the children run around on their own | Please keep them under control in small groups - a helper to 4 or 5 children is good. |
| Do brief the children ahead of time so they hit the ground running. e.g. many do not know that a cow is female and a bull is male | Do not forget to tell us about problem children or those with difficulties of some type | Then we can discuss how to handle the situation and the logistics of children with disabilities |
| Do ensure the children have suitable drinks, snacks and lunch | Do not let the children suck their thumbs or eat until they have washed their hands | This is true of every outdoor event - birds poo everywhere |
| Brief your helpers beforehand and support them in keeping discipline | Do not let the children make loud noises or sudden movements near the animals | The animals are used to children, but like anything else can be easily frightened - a cow weighs 3/4 of a tonne!! |
| Do take notes and collect things to take back to the classroom, and continue the teaching. We have some good worksheets | Do keep a close eye on children near ponds, rough ground, near animals, etc. | The farm is a lot of fun, but is a place of work on rolling rough lovely countryside |
| Do tell us what worked for you and what did not, and tell us how we might make things better. And get the children to send us something a few days later - we love seeing their drawings, letters or poems. | Do not go away without filling in one of our evaluation forms for each group we take around. Three groups - three forms please. | You get the visit free if and only if we get a form for each group for each walk they go on - the government then pays us an educational access payment based on the forms |
