The Ernest Cook Trust

Ernest Cook Trust
learning from the land since 1952
A day in the life of...
Gore Farm Education Centre, Trent
It’s feeding time at Gore Farm and the babble of excited schoolchildren is almost drowned out by the clamour of hungry calves.
“Are you ready?” calls out farmer Stuart Casely as the children line
up along the feeding stalls. Then he opens the gate and the calves,
some just weeks old, rush in, lunging and jostling for position to get
into the stalls and feed from buckets of milk.
The delight on the young faces says it all. These eight and nine-yearolds from Milford Junior School in nearby Yeovil have only come
a few miles out into the countryside for this trip – but for most of
them this is their first taste of farm life.
With the feeding over and the calves back in
their pen, it’s time to meet the pigs. Stuart opens
another gate and Large Black pigs Twiglet and
Piglet come marching through - the children take
turns to scratch their backs with a brush.
This working farm in the village of Trent in Dorset
is owned by the Ernest Cook Trust, one of the
UK’s leading educational charities, and has been
farmed by the Casely family since 1957, first by
Stuart’s father and then by Stuart since 1989.
Rooted in the conservation and management of the countryside, the Trust actively encourages children and young people to learn from
the land through hands-on educational opportunities on its estates.
So, as well as farming its 400 acres, growing wheat, barley, maize and
grass and rearing 200 head of beef cattle, Stuart and Tessa also run
outdoor education visits for children of all ages, with help from their
sons David and Mark.
They started organising the visits four years ago after giving
up dairy farming and wanting to find a new use for the
redundant dairy buildings.
In their first year they had just one visit – this year there will
be over 70 from primary and secondary schools. “It’s grown
phenomenally,” says Stuart. “In the last two years it’s been
mainly through word of mouth; teachers talking to other
teachers.”
Stuart and Tessa Casely and friends!
Schools are not charged for the visits – all they have to pay for is their
transport to the farm. The Caselys also help teachers carry out the
necessary risk assessments, and half or full day visits can be designed
to link into any curriculum subject, tailored to the requirements of
the school.
Activities range from a general farm tour, looking at the beef unit
and how animals are cared for, to a themed tour or study looking, for example, at conservation and wildlife, to a ‘hands-on’ session with
small animals such as chicks, geese, pheasants or goats.
Pupils can also see a milking demonstration, look at the farming
year, observing farming practices throughout the seasons, and see a
display of machinery currently used on the farm.
There is also a secure area of woodland – Parks
Plantation – set up for educational visits. A visit
there could include observing the changing seasons,
a sensory trail, habitats, a ‘mini-beast’ hunt, pond
dipping and team building exercises, such as shelter
building.
Gore Farm is a member of two environmental
schemes, Countryside Stewardship and the Entry Level
Scheme (ELS), and all arable fields have a field margin
of two or six metres around them to encourage and
protect wildlife.
The farm is also involved with work to conserve the barn owl, there are bird surveys carried out by the RSPB, and a tagging system
for birds such as buzzards.
With the Trust’s support, Stuart and Tessa have turned old barns into
reception and wet weather areas, and they have added toilets and
hand washing facilities, disabled access and a shaded picnic area
with views across the rolling hillsides.
They ferry pupils and teachers around the farm, courtesy of a
purpose-built tractor trailer which can accommodate up to 30 children.
Stuart is captain of the Trent Estate shoot, which in 2005 won second
place in the Purdey Awards for Conservation. The £2,000 prize
money, along with a further £2,000 donation from ECT went to fund
the new trailer.
“The Ernest Cook Trust has been totally supportive,” he says. “We base what we do on them having complete faith in what we’re
trying to achieve.”
For enquiries and bookings for Gore Farm in Dorset, or at the
Ernest Cook Trust’s other outdoor education centres in Gloucestershire
and Leicestershire, please visit www.ernestcooktrust.org.uk/contact
www.ernestcooktrust.org.uk