Rosie Jeffries from Greatworth Hall, Oxfordshire has been acclaimed as the overall winner of the Bayer Farming and Countryside Education (Face) Awards for giving school children farm education.
The awards help celebrate the best in food and farming education across Britain.
Rosie Jeffries was one of five winners at a lunch in London’s Banking Hall in front of over a hundred guests from the world of agriculture and education, having earlier scooped the Farm School Partnership Award.
This award is presented to a farm or organisation which is making an outstanding contribution to improving young people’s understanding of the food and farming sector.
First-hand
Greatworth Hall, a 200ha arable farm, explains that children should experience farming and the countryside first-hand.
Farm Education Centre Manager and shepherd Rosie Jefferies has a BA (Hons) in Primary Education and is currently taking Forest School Leader Training. She runs the farm with her father.
The website states: "We unashamedly teach children where meat comes from, the lifecycle of a sheep and chicken, along with non-organic farming practices. This teaches and helps them to understand the countryside in an honest and clear way.
"Often farming is misrepresented by media or by people who simply do not know or understand the industry; we want to correct this image by being transparent and honest with children as we share our industry with them."
'Really impressed'
Head Judge, Janet Hickinbottom, National Education Officer at Farming and Countryside Education (FACE) the charity helping to organise the awards said the competition this year was "extremely fierce".
“The judges were really impressed with how Rosie and the team at Greatworth Hall have been able to make farming and the environment relevant to all parts of the school curriculum, and we were delighted to present them with the Farm School Partnership Award.”
Michael Muncey, Head of Business for Bayer Crop Science in the UK, which helped organise the competition, said: “Greatworth Hall is a very worthy winner of this award. It is fantastic to see the sheer enthusiasm of people trying to reconnect young people with where their food comes from.
“Farmers, growers and other organisations up and down the country are doing some amazing work when it comes to making UK agriculture relevant to the next generation, and we believe it is worth celebrating their achievements.”
