Katie Earle started Bush Farm School on Banks Peninsula because she is passionate about sustainability and wants children to be more resilient and resourceful.
The primary school teacher has teamed up with Banks Peninsula sheep farmer Stella Bauer to develop a hands-on farm programme that gets five to 12-year-olds out of the classroom and understanding where their food and fibre come from.
Most of the children have never been on a farm before and Earle thinks education needs to change to accommodate more land-based teaching.
"We have no behaviour issues, the kids are wholly engaged and they're learning about the environment, where they live and how it all connects together," she says.
The rain stops when the youngsters head out onto the farm. It is muddy underfoot and, with a skiff of snow on the hills, there's a chill in the air.
The first challenge the children face is negotiating a swollen stream.
"We're finding that when some of the kids come onto our programme they are not used to uneven ground or going up hills, so a lot of our curriculum is just to build muscles," Earle says.
After feeding grain to a mob of 400 sheep, the boisterous children clamber through bush to the top of the farm. Muddy and tired, they rest in a paddock of feed crops as the sun comes out to watch the sheep graze.
"The space, the view, the sheep, the pasture in front of them, everything is so much at once, so they've actually all calmed down by themselves," Bauer says.
The outdoor programme is a labour of love for Earle and her dream is that eventually, every child across Aotearoa can have a farm experience as part of their learning journey.
