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Schools and organisations

How we work

We work in partnership with all our schools and partner organisations as we know this leads to greater impact and lasting change.

If you work with young people and are thinking about how Jamie’s Farm could help you, your young people and your school or organisation, then this page is for you.

A catalyst for change

Built around our unique blend of Farming, Family and Therapy our residential programme acts as a catalyst for change; enabling young people to thrive academically, socially and emotionally during their school years and beyond.

During the week up to 12 young people, accompanied by two to three members of staff from their school/organisation, are involved with the running of one of our four rural working livestock farms in Bath, Hereford, Monmouth and Lewes. Visiting young people complete real jobs with tangible outcomes including farming, gardening, cooking, horse work, log chopping, music and crafts, as well as a daily walk in the countryside. Alongside this, we provide one-to-one and group reflective sessions to support young people to vocalise rather than act out their challenges and develop new positive behaviour patterns to carry forward into home and school life.

Beyond the residential

A visit to Jamie’s Farm does not end when young people leave. Alongside our core components of Farming, Family and Therapy is our Legacy strand. Through this, we support schools and students when they return, to embed the changes and achieve a greater long-term impact. We also run Oasis Farm Waterloo, where we deliver follow-up, and longer-term, programmes for our London partners.

Of those at risk of exclusion
64%
not at risk 6 months on (*21/22)

Boy in kitchen giving thumbs up
Jamie and boy leaning on gate

Of visiting staff
99
% recommend Jamie’s Farm*

Two young people walk alongside Jamie up a country lane followed by small head of cows
Four young people dressed in overalls and wellies hold a lamb each

Talk to us about booking a visit to a farm

Our farms are open all year around, both during school term time and in the holidays.

We welcome groups from any organisations which work with young people who may benefit from a visit to Jamie’s Farm. This includes mainstream schools, alternative provisions, special schools, local authority groups, virtual schools and charities.

Please get in touch with our Partnerships Manager Phoebe Ruxton to find out more, or download our school information pack.

Cultivating Change

Helping children fulfil their potential isn’t always easy. That’s why we’ve created a network of support for professionals working with children and young people.

Whether you’ve visited the farm, or are just interested in learning more about our methodology and how it could be applied to your setting, join our thriving community of professionals and get access to exclusive content, including:

  • Tools and resources based on the Jamie’s Farm approach;
  • Events focused on real issues effecting young people;
  • Access to a network of like-minded professionals working with young people;
  • Latest news and updates from the farm teams.

Discover our latest podcasts, news and more

Through our blog and podcast we seek to share thought provoking insight whilst providing guidance for those working with young people, who like us, want young people to become the best version of themselves. Our podcasts will alternate between three key themes:

In Focus – deep dives into the pressing issues affecting young people;
Tish and Teachers – these episodes will have teachers at their heart as guest contributors discussing current issues facing the profession;
Regenerative Education – bigger picture discussions about the education system with a range of guest speakers.

Answering your questions

If you can’t find your answers below please get in touch.

Questions and answers for:

  • I work for a school/organisation
  • I am a parent/carer
  • Safeguarding

Our impact shows it is. By taking young people out of their home environments, away from their phones, consoles and all social media, and by providing them with a rich array of meaningful jobs that keep them active throughout the day, we provide them with a deep experience that stays with them forever. This experience of being positive contributing members of a family community feels good to these children; when they return home, they are able to maintain these patterns of behaviour and demonstrate the change they need to make in their lives.

We know cost can be a barrier for schools accessing our provision. We heavily subsidise all of our programmes, with the support of our funders, so schools only pay a contribution to the overall cost.

Many of our regular partners use their school inclusion budget to fund their visits. The cost of excluding one child is very high, often more than the cost of an entire trip to Jamie’s Farm. We know that, of those at risk of being excluded before a visit to the farm, about 75% of them are no longer in that category 6 months later. So, for the cost of one exclusion, you can send 12 pupils to the farm and we hope that the majority of them will no longer be at risk of being excluded after the visit. Schools tend to build this into their budgets, and their cost of exclusions goes down as a result.

Many schools use their pupil premium budgets to pay for trips, a Jamie’s Farm is an evidence based intervention with tangible outcomes and provides excellent additional opportunities for pupils who are eligible for pupil premium.

We are pleased to welcome a lot of children looked after to our farms. Schools, local authorities and virtual schools often use budgets associated with children who are looked after to fund visits, as we know our intervention can be particularly powerful for these young people.

Local charities can be a good source of funding, as they often want to fund interventions for vulnerable children directly in their local area. A trip to the farm is a really tangible thing, with tangible outcomes, that can be very attractive to local funders. Likewise, sometimes local businesses may be willing to sponsor a trip. PTAs and other bodies linked to the school can be good options for fundraising.

We work together with our partner schools to identify pupils for whom the experience will be most powerful. We believe that a group made up of a mixture of reasons for referral – nurture; engagement; behaviour – works best to create a group dynamic that is most likely to allow individual pupils to shine. Generally, each student is at risk of social or academic exclusion; we allow pupils to take themselves away from this ris

Jamie’s Farm have been working with looked after children since our inception. Over the past five years this has increasingly involved work with young asylum seekers and refugees, including separated children. Access to our rural, residential farms gives these young people a particularly powerful experience.

You can read more about our work via this PDF, and please don’t hesitate to contact Dom to discuss further how our programme can support you.

Unfortunately, we are unable to support individuals alone. We believe that being part of a school group of teachers and children allows the experience to be transferred back home much more effectively. When there are the inevitable challenges upon the children’s return, these other people who have been on their journey with them will be able to provide the necessary support to help them with through their problems.

Jamie’s Farm is staffed by experienced professionals who are able to run meaningful sessions in an engaging and safe manner. We help visiting members of staff wake kids up, and representatives of the farm will be with the kids all through the day. We aim for teachers to be able to take this opportunity to build positive and meaningful relationships with their pupils, and think about how their classroom practice may change in response to observing our approach. Every single visiting member of staff wanted to return to the Farm when surveyed in the past year.

Unfortunately members of the public cannot visit while we have residential groups on site, as we want to dedicate all of our time and attention to their needs in a quiet and calm environment. However, we host annual open days where members of the public are very welcome to visit. These are advertised within our events page and in our newsletter.

Our programme is primarily aimed at secondary school aged children. However, we do occasionally run bespoke visits for children of primary age who would benefit from our support. These are for children in the upper years of primary school.

All of our residential visits are 4 or 5 days long and run during the week. We find that this is the right amount of time for young people to settle into the farm and feel at home here, but not so long they miss their friends and family at home.

We do not currently offer visits at the weekend. We rent out all of our properties at the weekend to raise vital funds to support our charitable work. This is a great opportunity for groups of friends or families to enjoy our beautiful environments together. For more details, see here.

Delicious, fresh, healthy food is central to the Jamie’s Farm experience. All of the food we eat is freshly prepared by the visiting group, working closely with our talented chefs. Wherever possible, ingredients are taken from our farms and gardens. We will put together a menu which is both delicious, healthy and accessible for young people. There will always be vegetarian and vegan options and we can accommodate any special dietary requirements.

All of our farms have a staff team of 6 – 8 talented and experienced adults who will work with the visiting groups. They will lead all activities and will accompany the group throughout the week. We ask visiting organisations to bring 2 or 3 members of staff who will work alongside our team to support the young people. These can be any adults in your setting who know the group well. No farming experience is required!

Every week is different on Jamie’s Farm. Farms our seasonable and the jobs which need doing change all of the time. Visiting groups will always do hands on work with our animals. This could include delivering lambs, mucking out the pigs, moving the cattle and collecting the eggs from the chickens. We have horses on all of our farms and visiting young people will have the opportunity to work closely with them. There are logs to be chopped for the fire, fruit to be harvested and gardens to be tended. We will go for a walk through the beautiful countryside surrounding our farms every day. And, depending on the weather, there may be paddling in the river or sledging on the hills (but hopefully not in the same week).

All of our farms have beautifully converted farm houses and barns which have been turned into communal kitchens and living areas. Young people sleep in shared rooms which are cosy and homely. Visiting staff have their own rooms in the same house. We will work closely with visiting staff to plan sleeping accommodation around the needs to each group.

We have working dogs on all of our farms that help us look after our animals. Unfortunately visiting groups can’t bring their own dogs with them, as they don’t always get on well with our resident dogs or our lambs!

Check out our ‘How we farm’ page for details of the animals we have and the kind of farming we’re involved in.

If you’re interested in bringing a group to the farm, please contact Dom (see details further below) to discuss the needs of the young people you work with and our availability. We can then start planning a programme specifically for your group.

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Creating change for vulnerable teens

We are delighted to announce the release of Tish Feilden’s debut book ‘Creating Change for Vulnerable Teens’.

After co-founding Jamie’s Farm,Tish began her career as a mainstream teacher, specialising in supporting children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, before becoming a psychotherapist working with adolescents and their families. The book documents Tish’s 30 years’ experience of working with truly remarkable teens who have faced huge challenges in their lives.

If ordering through Amazon, please consider doing it via Smile Amazon where 0.5% will be donated to Jamie’s Farm.

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