The Farm

As stewards of God’s creation, we are called to make the earth a beautiful garden for the human family.

– Pope Francis

We are blessed to have an amazing Farm on site, created by the school community and funded by the PTA.

As well as teaching children: about their role as Stewards of Creation; responsibility and how to take care of others; about their natural environment and practical life-skills, research has shown that animals in educational settings can have an indirect effect on improving learning. The relationship between humans and animals has been shown to directly affect motivation, engagement, self-regulation, and human social interaction. All our children benefit from using the Farm, but it is particularly beneficial to younger, developing children and those with Special Educational Needs. Spending time with the animals reduces stress and anxiety, improves social interactions and enhances motivation, engagement, and learning. 

Cross-curricular Learning

The Farm is a daily part of life at St Catherine’s. Each class has a dedicated day on a two-weekly rota, where they let out and put away, feed, clean out, groom and look after our animals. The kids absolutely love it when it is their ‘turn on the Farm’! It is also used as part of our cross-curricular, practical, skills-based learning-approach. Why calculate area and perimeter in a classroom, when you could do it in the Farm? Why solve made-up maths problems, when you could calculate the amount and cost of food for the chickens? Why write instructions for how to make a cheese sandwich, when you could write instructions on how to care for our guinea pigs? It’s all about real-life learning!

Cross-curricular learning and real-life skills

Farm Rangers

We take responsibility seriously at St Catherine’s. The adults don’t run the Farm, that is the job of our pupils, especially our ‘Farm Rangers’.

As part of our Mission to enable children to ‘Be who God created them to be’, we encourage children to find and explore their own talents. Our Farm Rangers are KS2 pupils who have formerly applied, been interviewed and selected to oversee our Farm. These Farm Rangers than undertake Farm Training and supervise the work carried out by all the other pupils.