LATEST NEWS

Clean Hands Zone Toolkit

FCFCG has designed a set of free-to-use, highly accessible Health & Safety signs to encourage farm visitors to wash their hands. The new signs are particularly relevant for young children, people with learning difficulties or other special needs. For further details and to download the kit please click here

Regional Conferences 2011

Our batch of Autumn Regional Conference have now come an end. Thanks to all who participated. We shall provide details of Regional Conferences in 2012 in due course.

AIS 23

On 31 March HSE published the revised Agriculture Information Sheet No 23 (rev2)on preventing ill health when visiting a farm. It is freely available from the HSE website

There is also a smaller leaflet available called Avoiding infection of farm visits. Please download a copy here

Kate Humble: 'countryside walks should be mandatory'

Kate Humble, the BBC wildlife presenter, wants visits to the countryside to be mandatory for schoolchildren and is to take the matter up with the Education Secretary. More....

Educational Access Visits

Defra have announced today (16 March 2011) that annual revenue payments for some educational access visits will now continue within Higher Level Stewardship. For further details click here.

Controlling Infection on Farms

A new set of materials on infection control on farms has been developed in response to the recommendations of the Griffin Report into last year's outbreak of E.coli 1057. These include information sheets and children's activities to highlight important topics such as handwashing. To download documents please click here

BBC Article on E.Coli - 15 June 2010.

Download here.

Griffin Report on E-coli 2010

After outbreaks of e-coli on five farms in Devon, Surrey, North Yorkshire, and Nottinghamshire in September 2009, which left several children seriously ill, the Health Protection Agency carried out an investigation, led by Professor George Griffin. The findings of this 250-page report were made public on 15 June. To download a summary of recommendations click here. We will be working with our partners in Access to Farms to deliver a sector wide response to the recommendations. Should you have any questions or wish to feed any comments into these discussions please get in touch with Gary Richardson on
07711 069092 or email him here.

Recipro8

Reciproc8 is a recycling company that provides FREE products and experiences to schools throughout the UK through a recycling rewards scheme. This includes free transport - a great way to increase the number of school visits to farms.

The schemes are simple to start and manage. You gain Reciproc8 Points for the mobile phones, inkjet cartridges and toners that you collect for recycling. You can then redeem these Reciproc8 Points against the range of products and experiences in the Reciproc8 Reward programme. For further details click here.

For further details about Reciproc8 visit their website:

New ‘farm visits learning day’ to help deliver national curriculum and enable children to learn about food, farming and the natural environment Farm Visits Learning Day.

For lastest HSE advice on E-coli, please follow the following link.

For the latest information on Swine Flu please refer to the Health Protection Agency website and the DEFRA website


Bluetongue
for the latest news from DEFRA please
click here

Foot and Mouth
for the latest news from DEFRA please
click here

Avian Flu,
for the latest news from DEFRA please
click here

Farms for Schools

FFS aims to ensure that school trips to farms are safe, enjoyable and educationally worthwhile. Four Farms for Schools members were included in the"Five best Farms for Kids" article in the Saturday Guardian. Cotswold Farm Park in Glos, Odds Farm Park in Bucks, Mead Open Farm in Beds and Cannon Hall Farm in South Yorks. Click here to see article.

All FFS members meet the required standards in the provision of facilities and educational resources for farm visits.

These include Health and Safety, current employers liability insurance and adequate toilet and hand washing facilities. Livestock on farms have to be attended by a vet at regular intervals.

 

Farmers

Please download a copy of
The Guide for Hosts planning countryside events involving schools

Teachers

Please download a copy of
The Guide for Teachers visiting countryside events involving schools

Controlling Infection on Farms

A new set of materials on infection control on farms has been developed in response to the recommendations of the Griffin Report into last year's outbreak of E.coli 1057. These include information sheets and children's activities to highlight important topics such as handwashing. To download documents please click here

 

Acrobat Reader is required to view the above documents
- to download the latest version please click here

 

Farms for Schools
Unit 4F
Top Land Country Business Park
Cragg Road
Mytholmroyd
West Yorkshire
HX7 5RW
Phone: 01422 885566
Fax:01422 885533
Email: info@farmsforschools.org.uk

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