ABSTRACT
Brockhill Park Performing Arts College is home to one of the largest school farms in the UK, where never before has it been so important to engage young people in the countryside. While the majority of teenagers surveyed agree that young people should be more interested in how food is produced, overall, it appears that they have a limited view of what food production and farming involves explicitly. This chapter, through a case study method, explores innovative attempts to combat the contemporary challenge of how teenagers understand where food comes from to achieve food security and sustainability. The authors do this through their ethos of outdoor learning, the full integration of the whole school curriculum with the school farm, and the development and delivery of their own practically applied level 1 and 2 accredited course, the Great Outdoors, in which all year 7 and 8 students participate. The chapter also explores strategies to engage teaching staff, make the farm an integral part of the curriculum, appeal to teenagers, extend the provision of their unique resource, and use the farm to encourage attendance and promote health and wellbeing. It includes tried and tested ideas for a case study approach that other schools can use entirely, or in part.
