Cooking really good pizzas in a wood fired oven demands top quality very dry wood. We have secured this years supply from local wood fuel supplier FFT Lumber their wood is kiln dried hardwood which is ideal for our oven. Click on their logo to visit their website, they supply woof fuels for all appliances and also undertake tree surgery and garden fencing.

We have been busy taking bookings for 2012, if you wish to make a visit with your school please get in touch with us as days are filling up fast.

The Pizza Farm has recently featured in the Yorkshire Life Magazine. As part of the magazines continuing efforts to promote all things local in the food arena writer Annie Stirk visited us for a morning in August. The article she wrote along with Photograps taken by John Cocks can be viewed here

THE PIZZA FARM GETS TOP MARKS FOR EDUCATIONAL VISITS

THE PIZZA FARM near YORK has shown itself to be at the top of the class for educational visits by being awarded a Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge.

Awarded by the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom, the LOtC Quality Badge combines for the first time learning and safety into one easily recognisable badge for all organisations providing learning outside the classroom experiences.

The Pizza Farm spokesperson Mike Newland said “Being awarded the LOtC Quality Badge is a real coup for all the staff here as it shows that we offer young people the type of high quality learning experiences they really benefit from. We’re thrilled to get official recognition for our efforts and we look forward to welcoming even more children and young people from the local area to our Farm”

The LOtC Quality Badge was launched in 2009 as part of the Learning Outside the Classroom Manifesto, a national initiative to ensure young people are given more opportunities to have these experiences as part of the curriculum. The LOtC Quality Badge is awarded by the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom, the national voice for Learning Outside the Classroom. The Council also provides free online guidance and information for teachers on how to plan and organise high quality activities. The LOtC Quality Badge is designed to make it easier for teachers to identify providers of quality educational visits. Organisations will display the Quality Badge as a signal to schools that their venue has met required standards, so teachers do not need to carry out their own risk or quality assessments.

There are two routes to the LOtC Quality Badge.  Route 1 is for organisations offering activities that are considered relatively low risk and activities that take place wholly in controlled areas used by the public, such as museums, galleries, places of worship and zoos.  Route 2 is for organisations providing activities that require a degree of technical knowledge and experience beyond the lay person. For example, adventurous activities such as rock climbing and river and coastal fieldwork, where young people enter the water to make measurements.

Providers looking to gain the LOtC Quality Badge will need to meet a set of six quality indicators and will be supported through a developmental process by a package of on-line support materials, which will include guidance, good practice exemplars, downloadable templates and training materials.

Beth Gardner, Chief Executive of the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom said:

“Educational visits are among the most memorable experiences in a child’s school life.  The LOtC Quality Badge offers teachers a guarantee that not only is a venue providing the sort of educational value that they can build on in class long after the visit but they also have the appropriate risk management structures in place.

Learning outside the classroom has many proven educational benefits. The LOtC Quality Badge will reduce red tape and provide assurance for schools, thereby ensuring that many more young people have memorable, exciting and valuable learning outside the classroom experiences. I congratulate [insert venue] on being awarded the LOtC Quality Badge.”

The LOtC Quality Badge is available to large and small organisations providing quality learning outside the classroom experiences and managing risk effectively. Over 750 organisations have already been awarded the Quality Badge, including museums, adventurous activity and field study centres, places of worship, art galleries, visitor attractions, student travel companies and farms.

For more information about the Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge, please visit www.lotcqualitybadge.org.uk

We had a great weekend at Leyburn, North Yorkshire promoting the Pizza Farm and Pizza a la Cart. Its good to talk to people and let them know what we can offer either as educational visits to the Farm or catering for special events with the oven. Once again the food from the oven was a great hit, we were only providing free tasters but after one taste the general comment was “can we buy one”.

We also ran a small quiz for children to enter with varied questions about the Pizza farm and farming in general. We were delighted with the number of quiz sheets completed and for those with the correct answers we entered them into a prize draw. Congratulations go to Ione Powell whos sheet was drawn as the winner and along with her family will be visiting us on Open Farm Sunday to enjoy some free wood baked Pizza. The farm will be open to everyone on Open Farm Sunday (12th June 2011) and whilst you may not be lucky enough to enjoy free Pizza like Ione there will be plenty of Pizzas on sale for you to enjoy. We will be posting more information on the activities on open farm sunday nearer the time

As the song title says “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain” well it doesnt in the Vale of York plain. We have recorded just 2 mm of rainfall in the last 8 weeks and the crops on the farm are suffering from a severe lack of moisture. April showers have not arrived and this lack of precipitation will have a knock on effect through the rest of the growing season. At least the temperatures have moderated and rain is forcast, although i will believe it when I see it.

In collaboration with the RSPB a volunteer from the organisation has just completed the first survey of four to be undertaken this Spring to look at Bird species and nesting sites on the Farm. The survey revealed 34 Species of which 6 are on the red list. All the following were spotted in one early morning 3 hour sweep of the farm, so if your visiting our discovery tunnel and undertaking a nature trail walk you are quite likely to see a number of these.

RED LIST

House Sparrow

Tree Sparrow

Lapwing

Linnet

Sky Lark

Yellow Hammer

AMBER LIST

Barn Owl

Little Owl

Bullfinch

Dunnock

Greylag Goose

Mallard

Mistle Thrush

Reed Bunting

Swallow

Tufted Duck

Willow Warbler

GREEN LIST

Wood Pigeon

Wren

Robin

Red Legged Partridge

Pheasant

Moorhen

Long Tailed Tit

Little Owl

Black Bird

Blue Tit

Carrion Crow

Chiff Chaff

Collared Dove

Great Tit

Green Finch

For an explanation of the RSPB red, amber and green lists go HERE

We posted back in November about plans to scrap support for educational access to Farms. Well some good news for once, the plans have been modified to include certain farm visits following the announcement below:-

Continued support for  Educational Visits to Farms in Higher Level Stewardship

Defra has announced that annual revenue payments for some educational access visits will now continue within Higher Level Stewardship (HLS). The payments (an annual  base payment of £500 and payments of £100 per visit), were withdrawn for new HLS agreements following the  Spending Review as announced on 16^th November, but are now being made available again. Payments for capital items to support educational access visits will also continue to be available.

This decision responds to concerns which were raised following the Spending Review outcome. In reinstating these payments, Ministers have underlined their belief in the importance of the countryside as a valuable learning environment, and have always made clear their keenness to ensure that farm educational visits continue to be available. Therefore, following further consideration, they have decided that funding should continue for some types of educational access visit under HLS.

These are:

• Educational visits for school pupils up to and including age 16.
• Care farming visits (health and educational care services for one or a range of vulnerable groups of people providing a supervised, structured, programme of farming related activities).

Annual payments for visits by those in higher education (A- level and above) and for farmer-led walks/talks for special interest and youth groups will not be reinstated

Natural England, the scheme deliverers, will be contacting the small number of  agreement holders who have entered into HLS agreements since December 2010, and those with applications in the pipeline,  who had previously expressed an interest in providing educational access visits, to discuss how these can now be incorporated into their agreements. There are no changes to HLS agreements that commenced before 1^st December 2010.

We will also be looking at ways to further improve the value for money of our support for educational access within HLS as part of our wider work to make Environmental Stewardship more effective.

Skies still grey and leaden, cold with it so apart from the snowdrops and daffodils little else is growing. This week ( if it warms up ) we will be starting our fertiliser applications to our over wintered crops. We will also be preparing for the open farm sunday workshop we are holding for landowners interested in holding their own event and organised by LEAF and FACE , this is being held on the 17th. As for signs of spring we will wait expectantly for next week.