Tick off Bronze and Silver for... Using chickens to teach children about animal welfare
13 December 2011 – Keeping chickens or other animals in school is not a prerequisite for achieving a Food for Life Partnership award, but – alongside growing – lots of schools find that it’s a great way to engage the children, teaching them about life cycles and animal welfare.
Food education
Bronze: Our pupils have the opportunity to grow and harvest food and make compost, and this is linked to wider learning.
Silver: Our pupils explore the ethical and environmental issues around food choices and this is linked to changes in our school meals.
Resources
This chicken welfare information sheet discusses the differences between organic, non-organic free range, corn-fed, Freedom Food and intensively reared chickens.
Around 70 per cent of sows reared for meat in the UK will spend all of their lives indoors. This pig welfare information sheet examines the differences in welfare standards for UK-reared pigs.
Taking care of dinner is a film, which gives a short introduction to varying animal welfare standards for chickens, pigs and dairy cows.
Case study
Disraeli School and Children’s Centre in Buckinghamshire has been keeping chickens in school since 2009 and uses the eggs in Numeracy lessons, cooking club and breakfast club. The chickens are also a big feature of the After School Club, and children are rewarded with eggs for looking after them. Read the case study.
Twelve days of Christmas!
Focus on Food is celebrating Twelve Days of Christmas with 12 delicious, festive recipes for each day. The first recipe for the first day of Christmas is Ham Terrine. Read the blog.
