If we want the next generation to understand where good food comes from, we must make it real. Not just something that arrives in plastic, ready-priced and packaged, but something grown in soil, shaped by seasons, and produced by people who look after land and animals.

That’s why trips like Abercerdin Primary School’s visit to Slade Farm Organics in St Brides Major matter. The pupils spent the day getting stuck in – digging into the soil, learning how food is grown, and seeing first-hand what ‘farm to fork’ really means. It’s the kind of learning that sticks because it’s physical, memorable, and joyful.

A working organic farm, designed for learning

Slade Farm Organics is an organic farm in the Vale of Glamorgan which actively welcomes school groups and visitors to share what it does and why. Its farm visits focus on nature-friendly farming, community connection, and giving people a closer look at life on a working farm.

As a 650-acre mixed livestock and arable organic farm, running from St Brides Major down to the coast at Southerndown, it’s a rare combination of scale, landscape and food production which makes it a brilliant place for outdoor learning.

This kind of experience does three important things at once:

  • Builds food confidence: children are more likely to try, value and waste less food when they understand it.
  • Connects health to real life: “healthy eating” becomes practical, not abstract.
  • Links food to nature and sustainability: they see that choices in farming affect soil, wildlife, and climate.

Food & Fun

This visit formed part of Wales’ Food & Fun School Holiday Enrichment Programme; a school-based scheme that provides healthy meals, physical activity, and enrichment (including food and nutrition learning) during the summer holidays, supporting children in areas of need.

Food & Fun has been developed since 2015 and is now overseen nationally by the WLGA, helping children stay healthy, active and connected during the long break.

As part of its wider work, the Bridgend Sustainable Food Partnership has supported Food & Fun locally by helping to provide growing kits and farm trips for Abercerdin Primary, making opportunities like this possible.

Graeme Wilson, Farmer and Grower at Slade Farm Organics explained, “School visits to working farms matter because they turn food from an abstract idea into something children can see, touch and understand. When young people meet the people who grow their food, experience the seasons on the land and learn how soil, animals and nature all work together, it builds confidence, curiosity and care. Those real, hands-on experiences stay with them – and help shape healthier, more connected and more sustainable choices for the future.”

Another project overseen by the Bridgend Food Partnership is partnering Slade Farm with Afon-y-Felin primary school in a one-year pilot to connect children with land, food and producers through seasonal, experiential learning. It includes farm visits, school growing planning, cooking lessons using organic farm produce (with a focus on seasonal availability), pupil-led crop planning linked to recipes for a pop-up kitchen, ongoing farm updates – and even a summer celebration event with parents, which will include a pop-up restaurant.

To find out more about this project as it evolves, sign up to our Bridgend Food Partnership newsletter here.