Samantha Gourd from Country Space explains the profound benefits and opportunities presented by connecting educational institutions with British farms. The initiative aims to provide immersive, hands-on learning experiences for students, facilitating a deeper understanding of agriculture and sustainability.

By engaging children in activities such as growing vegetables and caring for animals, the program not only enhances educational curricula but also fosters a lifelong respect for nature. The conversation underscores the critical role of primary education in shaping future citizens who appreciate the origins of their food and the importance of environmental stewardship. This dialogue serves as a clarion call for schools to embrace experiential learning beyond the confines of the traditional classroom.

Takeaways:

1. The conversation with Samantha Gourd emphasizes the critical importance of connecting schools with British farms to foster experiential learning opportunities for children.
2. Through immersive workshops, students gain hands-on experience in farming, which cultivates empathy and respect for nature and sustainability.
3. Samantha's initiative aims to address the pressing challenges faced by British farming, thereby ensuring food security and sustainability for future generations.
4. Early exposure to farming and food production significantly influences children's values and perceptions about agriculture as they grow into adulthood.
5. Country Space serves as a vital intermediary between educational institutions and farms, facilitating safe and enriching experiences that benefit both parties.
6. The podcast underscores the necessity of integrating real-world experiences into the educational system to inspire future generations about the origins of their food.

Chapters:

1. 00:00 - Connecting Schools to British Farms
2. 05:30 - The Importance of Agricultural Education
3. 09:40 - Understanding Food Education in Schools
4. 11:49 - The Impact of Nature on Well-Being
5. 19:49 - The Impact of Farm Visits on Education
6. 22:34 - Inspiration and Engagement in Education

http://www.country-space.co.uk/

Countryspaceuk - to connect on social media

For all primary schools looking to join workshops on their Kent and Sussex farms - mention Education on Fire to get 10% off

Show Sponsor – National Association for Primary Education (NAPE) https://nape.org.uk/

Find out more about their Primary First Journal: https://www.educationonfire.com/nape

🔥 Discover more about Education on Fire and get a FREE pdf of 10 guest resources you can use to support learning

https://www.educationonfire.com/

🔥 Support the show – Buy me a coffee, Merch and Sponsorship Opportunities

https://www.educationonfire.com/support

Today, I'm delighted to be chatting to Samantha Gould from Country Space about the benefits and opportunities she offers by connecting schools and organisations to British farms.

Now, these farms provide educational experiences and workshops for school visits and training workshops that bring people together for rural regeneration. Hello, my name is Mark Taylor and welcome to the Education On Far podcast, The place for creative and inspiring learning from around the world.

Listen to teachers, parents and mentors share how they are supporting children to live their best authentic life and are proving to be a guiding light to us all. Hi, Samantha, thank you so much for joining us here on the Education On Far podcast.

One of the things we're really, really passionate about is not being stuck in a classroom and actually children having the opportunity to be able to live life in the real world and get to experience that which I know is easier for some than others. So think this is going to be a really important conversation. So, yeah, thanks so much for being here.

No, thank you for having us.

I mean, it's a real privilege to speak with you today, especially as we believe schools and primary education in particular, hold the key to saving the future of British farming. So exciting, exciting topic for everyone today.

Brilliant. So, so take us into, you know, what are. What is country space?

How did you get involved in it and where does that passion, which is obviously already coming through, where did that come from?

Well, country space was born out of a deep concern for the state of our rural communities. Farming in Britain, it's under immense pressure.

So with reduced government grants, rising costs for fertilisers, machinery and livestock transport, many farms are struggling to stay afloat. So we're seeing produce outsourced abroad. And with that loss of sustainability, food security and connection to the land.

So our mission simply is simple but urgent, is to help save British farming and protect the countryside by opening it up to new audiences. So we. I started personally in events sales, was doing that for about 17 years over a number of chains and also a bit of an agricultural girl myself.

And the two kind of combined because, like I said, we have to save British farming due to the. The costs that are now involved, but also for events was also becoming unaffordable.

So it was a good way to kind of get people out again in nature and look at a different way of doing events.

So now we've opened up to new audiences, so corporates, we do charities and most importantly, schools, we act as a representative of the rural space, not an event manager, but as advocates for the land and the people who care for it.

So in terms of schools themselves, Then it's kind of farms and organizations that already have educational things set up and you're able to then sort of steer people in that direction in terms of sort of marrying the two.

Yeah, there's a, there's actually quite a few partners out there that we work with that offer. They build the workshops for the children. So we're able to provide sort of a safe environment for them to come and learn.

So for schools we offer something truly special. It's immersive, it's hands on learning experiences and it kind of brings the curriculum to life.

So I would say imagine children visiting a working farm, learning how to grow vegetables, understanding the life cycle of crops and caring for animals. I'd picture them milking cows, collecting eggs, feeding sheep and harvesting carrots with their own hand.

And these aren't just fun activities, they're formative experiences that spark curiosity and that builds empathy and lays the foundation for lifelong respect for nature and sustainability.

And in your experience, how far do schools and, and children come to experience that? Because I'm, I know you're sort of based in, in, in the south of England, but I guess local schools could obviously make that trip.

But they're, they're one sort of further afield that do that. You know, some sort of more sort of town and city people as well.

We do get a lot more inquiries off of sort of towns and cities and I think that's because they're so limited. I know in London they have sort of, they're called city farms that, which are charity based. Great for there was only two.

So I think what is easy for, what's good for us is that we have transport links so close by that it's easy for them to come along to or using a bus of sort of a, you know, hired bus service. And they're all accessible and nice and safe for them to come along to. But yeah, they do.

They have been more local for us at the moment as we grow as well and hoping that that then sort of influences other schools to, to get out there and, and choose a local farm to them.

Yeah.

And I think that was one of the things that really struck me when I was sort of looking into what the conversation we were going to have is the sense that, you know, someone in America, you know, is not in the same position that we're talking about. But of course the realities are the same. A lot of people are still under pressure.

You still want that kind of conversation between people who haven't been on a farm to experience that like you Say for the more sort of humane reasons rather than just the fact it's a day trip out for a school.

Absolutely.

I mean, we know that early exposure matters and research shows that children who engage with farming and food, food production at a young age are more likely to value it as adults. And that's why primary education is so critical.

It's not just about teaching science and geography, it's, it's also about shaping the future citizens who understand where their food comes from, who care about the environment and who might one day choose a career in agriculture, conservation or rural enterprise. And so it's important for, for those, these schools to get involved and get out, get out of the classroom.

Absolutely.

But I still remember sort of my kids when they were young that the, when the penny drops, that some of the things that they've seen in the supermarket are related to the things that they've seen on a farm. It's like, oh, that comes from here and that works like that. And it's just like.

But unless you, unless you know or you don't know, you don't know, do you?

I mean, I was lucky that I grew up and my grandfather was a shepherd, so I knew, I spent time in that environment and sort of knew that kind of thing. But if your kids don't do that, then, then how are they going to.

I know and I suppose they're in the supermarket and then they just think that it's just plastic wrapped, this is how it is. And, and you know, it's important for them to, to get out there and understand it more for, for them to make their own decisions in life as well.

But yeah, so that's, yeah, very important.

So in terms of, of how this sort of fits in with your sort of business generally, is it something you sort of have to work on in a different way because you're working with schools as opposed to like say a charity or a corporate or that kind of thing. Or does it, does it work the same for you? Because you're just sort of mediating between the people involved.

Because we're more of the middleman, as they say, is the terminology. It's. We work with the partners across the Southeast that actually build the workshops together.

And I think that's important because, you know, our business, the reason why we are middlemen is to uplift communities, other suppliers and partners because it's important for everyone to get a piece of the sort of overall pie.

So working with a partner that knows that environment and those, those people and that sector better than us is is important we do what we're good at and it's important to then hand it over to someone who understands the education system, the transportation logistics and things like that. So that's, that's how we, we work, work as a business and I guess.

The, the other thing of people will be worried about safeguarding and that kind of thing.

So you know, if you're working with people that have all of that in place already, that liaising between the schools and all of that gives them that sort of peace of mind that all control and you sort of can have that dialogue in whichever way you need to have it.

Nothing goes wrong that way. And it's good because it's, you know, it's important for the parents to feel comfortable in these outings.

It's quite a lot, you know, as a mother to be knowing that your children are going to leave that site where you've dropped them off in the morning, they're going to go off of some somewhere else.

You know, it's important to know that you're working with a partner that is well established and understands all those sort of safety regulations and it gives more peace of mind and I think that, that, that opens up more doors for children to go out.

Yeah, absolutely.

So in terms of you sort of mentioned there as a mother to be, how, how do you see that impacting on what you're doing and, and sort of your, your business going forward?

Well, I, I think it's really helped to, to.

For me it's exciting actually because I'm looking forward to seeing really I suppose because I don't have children now, I don't know how many of these schools are able to do to offer these sorts of workshops and what the challenges they come up against.

So I think it's nice because this is a very natural way to progress into that and learn more about the primary educational side and how else we can help and adapt and hopefully my children will take after that and get more involved in learning where their food comes from.

And I think often with these things it's a way of, you know, using the curriculum and actually being able to sort of join the dots together.

And people are often looking for ways to, to make it a hands on experience but also a way for it actually to feel like we want to make this an immersive experience which has a bigger impact than just this particular topic. And then next time we're going to have a different topic. It's much more like you said, understanding the human side.

And I think from a food point of view, as we get more and more into the lack or more people and the way food is actually going to be produced, I think that ongoing conversation and those ongoing experiences are going to be really important.

Definitely. I think it's. You know, farms are facing huge challenges at the moment and they.

No pun intended, but they are a dying breed and we don't want our produce to be outsourced, you know, overseas.

It's important to keep it within the country and that does start with the children and them understanding where everything comes from and how they can be a part of that future. And what a great future to. To be a part of.

Yeah, exactly. And you sort of mentioned this is sort of mainly primary schools that are doing it.

Are there also things related to special educational needs and different types of schools as well?

There are many charities such as. So there's schools like Aspen's over.

We're based, I'm based in the Ashdown Forest and in Tunbridge Wells there is a charity school, Aspens and they do a lot of out and about and it really does help because it's the creativity, the authenticity that comes with it and getting them to feel more a part of something and that they're giving back. So we do get a lot of charities from that sector.

The only areas I haven't really seen much is more secondary education and I think that's just probably because it's more critical in terms of what they're taking on their next steps. Aren't they going to university or A levels and so on. Definitely starts with the younger ones first.

Yeah. Going through.

And you sort of mentioned as a country person your yourself, what's your experience in terms of having that as a growing up kind of way of life and understanding to pair to people who may well go from like say from the towns or the cities in terms of maybe their expectations or maybe what they get out of it differently.

I think for me it's made me appreciate everything more. I think I appreciate the countryside more.

I understand like knowing about which animals are which or even sort of birds of prey and types of trees and. And so on. It all stems from being a young, a youngster in the countryside and I think that I wouldn't change that for the world.

I think it's a shame when you do have some children that are just in, in a.

In a city and they don't really get out and they don't know all of these importance and especially as you get older you want to kind of move out into the countryside, don't you?

So I think it has a massive impact on and, and the way that as you get older and you have sort of daily life stresses, you know, that going for a walk in the countryside helps sort of bit of clarity in the mind and so on.

And it's important for children to understand at a young age to help with, you know, things like depression as and so on, as people get older and experience some more of the daily life grinds, as they say.

Yeah, and like I say, I think experience is key, isn't it?

And it's very easy to get into the educational weeds of it, but actually in reality, just the life experience of it for children who've never experienced it before, or even if they have, they may never have been into this particular part of a farm or, or like, say, even got their hands dirty. So all of those things kind of really make a big difference.

I remember going to, on a school trip to a farm and picking eggs and, and feeding the cows like they, they gave us some wheelbarrows and we're putting hay in. And I, I remember it stemming from then that I really loved farm and I loved cows in particular.

And I think it's because I had that experience then I understood what I was eating as well as I got older.

So what is it about your sort of setting for when you were younger then?

The sort of, the marketing side, the event side of things that sort of took your interest and then sort of made you go that sort of full circle back into, into the agriculture side?

I think, because there's so much scope when you're working with a rural space, the backdrops that you have there and the creativity that comes from teams.

Especially when you work with a corporate cl, you tend to find that a lot, a lot of the time that they have been stuck in boardrooms and I always revert back to the gray wall with the pink stripe through it, which is where you go and have your meetings and you don't really get much out of it. And I think for me, I used to sit there and think, God, I'd rather have this meeting outside.

And sometimes I would take teams even to sort of local, local coffee shops are a bit more further out and the difference that we'd have in those meetings and the outcome.

So I think that comes from knowing about the countryside and knowing about the agricultural industry meant that then they did the full circle and then promoting rural spaces because overall they are a better benefit for everyone, whether that's corporate charities or education. So everything reverts back to there.

And I think one of the things that just struck me then was that this exact same thing applies in, in schools and education. You know, we talk about the idea of a.

Of a CPD day and you know, being in the classroom or being in a hall and someone talking to and all of that sort of stuff. People, I think now are looking to do it differently and need to do it differently.

And you sort of mentioned sort of well being and that thing before.

You know, to be able to do a school training day in this sort of environment is just a completely different way of people engaging and like say, coming together in, in like say whatever that happens to be the format of it or what you're learning, I think. I think would be brilliant as well.

I think it is. And, and I. This sounds. Might sound quite funny, but we have had corporates so taking on training where they've actually done breath work first.

They do sort of like a guided meditation out in an open space and using a farm that you can walk alpacas and llamas. And actually it really gets. Because it's different for them. So it's taking someone out of their comfort zone.

But you're in this nature, you know, natural environment and the feedback that you get from that is incredible because it's so different than the usual, oh, the service was on point and so on. It's. It's more about what they actually got from the day and how grounded they felt.

And sometimes we have some corporates and we have a farm actually over in Groombridge and a particular corporate booked twice there because they've never been seen mud. One or two people, one of them was an investor, had never seen mud and they were like, this is crazy. But they loved it so much because.

Because they're amongst the vines and the geese and so on.

And yeah, I guess that's kind of a key thing, isn't it? Because I guess you can talk about the benefits of it, but it's only when you've experienced it you see that.

So I guess some people, when they're sort of starting, they're like, this is a good idea, but maybe they're new to the company or they're sort of new to doing these sorts of things, I guess. Is there a certain amount of. Kind of explaining the benefits and seeing all of that?

It's almost like a sell in terms of doing it differently than like say the traditional meeting.

It is actually I found that what we, as a business, one challenge that we found was a rural space is actually a bit of a wild card for some people and therefore getting them to over the line, as they say. It was quite, quite difficult.

And that's why we created our podcast because it's educational and it's directed at a booker who can listen in in their own time and interview other people just like we're doing right now for them to understand the benefits. And that kind of gets them. Gets them interested. We see more inquiries come through that way.

And then when we actually book in site visits, you just see these.

The people light up because they're in this wonderful environment, whether it's woodlands and they're looking at sort of, you know, a woodland dinner or perhaps there are a huge viewpoint looking out across the Ashdown Forest and it just lights them up. And I think that that, that has helped us massively. It's definitely doing our podcast and you.

Sort of mentioned the Alpacas and, and things before. So what sort of range of. Of farms and. And places do you sort of have that people go to?

So we have a variety. So we have a lovely farm called Babylon which is an eco center. They have their own sort of outside kitchen and grow. Growing kitchen.

And they love to work with schools. They have a big play play area as well in an open field. So they'll do lots of more about learning how your crops and your vegetables grow.

And we also have vineyards on board, which is also very interesting. More of the. More adults like to go there.

You get a bit of wine tasting as well, but understanding how crop growth works and how the climate change has changed over here. So most spark. We have sparkling English wine here, but champagne is obviously in France.

But the climate change has meant that now the south east is a prime spot for sparkling wine. So it's interesting to learn about that. We also have a farm over towards West Sussex and they love to work with charities and do fun runs.

They have the south, the South Downs there as a national park. So we have a real mix.

The other, another farm we have is an asparagus farm and they love to put on sort of pick your own pumpkin patches which they've got on at the moment. And they have so many kids coming and doing that and that's been really important for them.

So yeah, we have a variety of different farms that we work with and.

I think that's a really good point to mention there is that you sort of, you have that sort of in. In your mind sometimes that traditional. It's going to be a school visit.

It's going to be a whole day or a Half day or whatever and we're going to be, be learning about kind of farming or whatever.

But like I say, the idea of picking some vegetables, it being just part of an after school thing or maybe it's part of a club that's organizing something as well. It's got much more breadth than that, hasn't it?

It's sort of just a question of whatever the organization you're from, from an educational standpoint, the chance to do something differently in that way and, and get it, get the benefit for what you need. Not just. I happen to be a class teacher and now we're going to go and do a visit it to this particular place.

Absolutely. I think as well the children come back so excited, don't they?

I mean I remember being at school and growing crest on the windowsill and that was as close as we got to the outside world.

Whereas now you can come along and plant your own seeds, grow your own carrots or pick, or pick in the lettuce and tomatoes and try in the tomatoes as well. And that the conversation around the dinner table for them with families must be so inspiring to hear.

And that's, you know, that's all down to that teacher that, that took that, that took that plunge and said let's go out and get, get the, get the children out into these, into these farms.

And I think certainly that sense of having something which is homegrown as opposed to it just being a supermarket related thing because these things do taste different, don't they?

And they, and they certainly taste different whether you've literally just picked it or you literally have seen that little journey as opposed to it's just arrived on my plate.

I know one of my friends, Monica, she actually has a little one at the moment. They do a lot of sort of growing their own vegetables at home and she says that mummy, this doesn't taste the same.

And they buy their tomatoes from the supermarket because they're not as sweet and as juicy as the ones they grow at home. And, and that's another important thing because those, those might have been imported.

Yeah.

And they come in plastic packaging, don't they? So there's lots more additives and so on that have been added to them. So.

And, and I think also I think those sorts of conversations as well in sort of related to the trips and going on there is important because it doesn't necessarily have to be a starting point in terms of we need to go to a farm.

Like say you're talking about additives, you're talking about, you Know things that are sort of environmental and like I say, the climate change, which is obviously related to the wine, but also is affecting different crops in that as well. So the actual starting point can be very varied, even though it may be the visit to a particular place is the same place.

But what you're trying to get out.

Of it is very different, Very different. And, and, you know, it means that they. They become more interested. And whether that's.

They then grow their own seeds at home, maybe on their own windowsills, or, or going back to the classroom. And that. That sort of talk and excitement, I think, is what lights that spark for those. For those children.

Yeah. So obviously the acronym FIRE is really important for us here at Education on Fire.

So I'm curious, what is it that you kind of think about or what sort of jumps off the page of that?

That.

And by that, we obviously mean in feedback, inspiration, resilience and empowerment.

I think for us, inspiration really stands out because that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to inspire these children to understand more about farming, where their food comes from.

And that might create sort of a ripple effect where they want to then get involved later on, which then leads on to a little bit of empowerment. So those would be my 2 forties for us today.

Yeah. And I always love everyone's sort of different take on it because depending on where you're coming from and what your.

What your sort of starting point is, it has a sort of a different focus as well. So, Samantha, thank you so much. It's been fascinating chatting to you.

I think it's going to give lots of people lots of thoughts about what they can do. And I think, like we said, where your starting point is to get that experience of being outside and into the countryside as well.

So where can people go? Where can they find out the information they need to be able to book.

Book?

So if you wanted to find out a little bit more about us and how to join a workshop, over to www.country space.co.uk and on there, you'll be able to see what farms we work with and contact us directly. And we'll be able to also then put you in touch with the partnerships that build the workshops for the children.

Amazing. Samantha, thank you so much. Indeed. I really appreciate your time today.

Lovely. Thank you so much for having us.

Thanks for listening to the Education on Fire podcast. For more information of each episode and to get in touch, go to educationonfire. Com.

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.