Rural studies

Farm school outraged at plan for land courses

This article reveals the possible consequences of the Government’s decision to downgrade more than 3,100 vocational qualifications currently measured in school league tables. For Brymore School in Cannington, Somerset, from 2015 while land-based BTECs would no longer appear on the curriculum other vocational subjects including beauty therapy will.

Mark Thomas, Brymore’s Headteacher explains “”Schools as unique as Brymore, who specialise in land-based studies, are being forced to consider our options – or risk being labelled as ‘unsuccessful’. How can schools justify investment in school farms when these qualifications no longer count? The message is clear – land-based studies in schools are not valued.”

BBC to move Blue Peter garden to Manchester

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This article simply moans about the relocation of a key element of the Blue Peter armoury to Manchesrter. Don’t knock it. On a serious note we have lost many things which connect young people to gardening, food and the pleasures of managing the environment. I have reflected previously on the need to re-invent the teaching of rural studies as something with a new spin (when I was at school it was seen as a fall back for less bright kids) which speaks to the enthusiasm we now regularly demonstrate for allotments, local produce and the great outdoors. Blue Peter is a very influential means of making inroads into a certain cohort of the viewing public and therefore the garden is important. We also need however to widen the prosletysing about the importance of rural England, it’s land based nature, local food and the great outdoors to all sections of society through the TV and it would be very interesting to debate how best to do that.