Community Fund – Batley Girl’s High School – June Update
For many students the farm here at BGHS provides a wonderful opportunity to get hands on experience and involved with a variety of animals that include Ollie and Stanley our pygmy goats, laying Boven, Rhode Island Red and Lohmann hens, Quail, Cayuga and Aylesbury ducks. Macey the rabbit and not forgetting the South African Rat or Daegu.
It’s great to see the helping hand students moving briskly towards the farm gates at break and lunch times to carry out many duties that help us form a fantastic working relationship in the care and welfare of the farm animals but possibly more important is the opportunity to socialise in a semi-rural setting while enjoying the delights that the farm offers.
The opportunity to view and understand the incubation process of fertile eggs from our own stock birds is wonderful for students of all ages and the arrival of our new Incubator following the successful local community campaign “It’s up to You” will no doubt help in this important farm activity.
We have been able to build with the support of our local TRA an aviary at the farm that will house our rare bread bantam chicks, quail and other fancy birds in the future.
Mr. Fox who visits the farm most evenings caused mayhem with an opportunistic attack with the loss of many of our TRA members birds. We share this reality of life with students and learn from the experience.
Horticulture with our Gardening Club enhances and consolidates the many other successes at Batley Girls’ High School as we aims to prepare our young people for a lifetime of sustainable living, though our teaching, the fabric of our buildings and the example of our day-to-day practices, to become a school built on the core principles of sustainable development.
The school canteen and food technology department welcome the fruits of our labours that include eggs, cooking apples, beef tomatoes, salad crops, plums, gooseberry, rhubarb onions and potatoes. The sweetcorn currently growing in the poly tunnel is just starting to show signs of producing cob.
The educational linked activity with our “Grow it” – “Cook it” – “Eat it” involvement is certainly enhanced with the schools farm and horticultural developments. The yr8 students studying French this term had a better understanding of this with a demonstration of French cuisine using the vegetables they had helped grow at the farm.
Local schools and the TRA members from the Chatterbox Centre are encouraged and supported with the provision of allotments within the school grounds.