School Farm
Children are responsible for the care and well-being of the animals and learn valuable skills.
Being situated on 8 acres of wonderful bushland on the outskirts of Melbourne allows us to provide a “farm life” experience to our students.
We keep farm animals, have various animals in each classroom and grow a selection of produce in our gardens. Our current farm animals include chickens and horses, and we have guinea pigs, fish, lizards and a turtle in our classrooms.
Horse riding is also part of the school activities and ponies are sometimes agisted in the school paddocks.
Most recently our school gardens have provided us with fresh basil, rosemary, capsicum, and tomatoes.
-
The Village Farm is an essential part of the school’s social development program. The children are responsible for the care and well-being of the farm animals and their enclosures. This encourages organisational skills, time management, team effort and observational skills.
Handling animals also means confronting fears and learning strategies for success, which leads to the development of self-reliance and self-respect.
Experience with animal illness and death also provide children with opportunities to learn the value of life, appreciate the cycles of nature and life, and mourn and celebrate life.
-
The children at Village School run a small business venture, based on the products of the school farm animals and gardens.
The business is named VIPP, for “Very Important Poo and Products”, and offers items such as:
Bags of horse manure
Fresh eggs
Excess farm produce on occasions
Any excess produce from family gardens for selling will also be gratefully received and sold to our community as part of the venture.
The school farm business venture connects academic skills to real life.
It provides opportunities to practise:
Numeracy skills: Coin identification, making change and keeping books
Literacy skills: Advertising
Organisational skills, communication skills and social skills
