On the Farm
Livestock/working with animals
Hillview Farm offers a day service to those living in Southern Archway homes and to external students wishing to work with animals.
Individual student support needs are taken into consideration and students are treated as individuals.
With the use of our animals we can begin to build self-confidence and our students can learn much needed life skills through their interaction with the animals. The two intrinsic values that an animal can offer are visual & physical. We are particularly pleased that the horses have proved to be a great learning/teaching medium.
We also rear pigs and cattle on the farm, giving the students the opportunity to understand about how we can farm animals for food consumption in a natural and stress free envitonment. We have reared saddle back pigs and Dexter cows from which we have produced the farm with top quality home reared meat.
Looking after the horses
For many people, traditional methods of teaching and learning may have failed to make sufficient impact, however if the individual is motivated by animals then this can be a focus for learning. Learning about the animals provides a learning purpose. For instance, letters are used as markers in the riding school, providing a first step to letter recognition and understanding, helping us work towards building sounds and words.
Manipulating a horse from one letter to the next can provide a non-confrontational method of teaching letter recognition, with the emphasis on riding the horse rather than on teaching actual letter recognition. The two methods complement each other with a positive outcome and are far removed from the classroom.
Riding shapes in an arena of specific measurement begins to open the door to a greater understanding of numbers, shape and space.
Feeding horses can teach an understanding of weights and measurements and quantities - all concepts we assume that others understand but which may be hard to grasp. As people develop their ability, so they can begin to respond to that ability by taking responsibility.
If looking after oneself has lost meaning - or perhaps it's a skill that's never been developed - learning to care for a horse or dog first can provide an incentive that becomes a personal achievement. Learning to wash a horse's mane, bath a dog or trim its nails can encourage more independence when tending to individual’s own personal care, as it leads to the creation of a new platform for discussing personal care generally.
Using an animal’s reactions as a model for learning has been very useful to demonstrate that an animal will react with a human in a positive way if that person is willing to be kind and show respect, thus developing a form of empathy, not only for the animal, but in the long run for those who support our students in day to day life and the students peer group.
For more information download our riding therapy brochure & Day Service leaflet:
Poultry care
The care of the ducks and chickens give’s the students an opportunity to develop skills in caring for animals, simple tasks such as feeding , egg collecting and cleaning out the hen houses can be very rewarding to our students who have had little experience in caring for animals.
Looking after and watching chickens can be very relaxing and therapeutic, they can be affectionate when handled daily and although they don’t appreciate all we do for them to keep them clean, dry and fed they do produce us with wonderful eggs .
Educationally the birds can teach the students about egg production and the breeding cycle, we have broody hens and also hatch eggs in an incubator for students to fully understand the process of reproduction in chickens.
Our birds are fed naturally and are kept free range, the students learn how to behave around these animals in there free environment, the students are also involved in making coops, nesting box’s and duck houses for our poultry, as well as producing recycled bedding for them by shredding all our unwanted paper, as a business we promote all recycling.
For more information on visiting us at Hillview Farm call us on +44 (0)1635 861496 or let us contact you.
