A year ago our team set up a Farm Centre in a small raised bed area outside our office in Takoradi. As well as this making the outside area a nicer place to be and providing some tasty crops our team can enjoy, it provides an opportunity for our team to lead by example and support the teachers on our transformational teacher training project.

The training requires teachers to use a thematic approach to their teaching. This mean that key areas of the curriculum such as maths, science, reading and writing etc are integrated into different themes throughout the year. One such theme is Plants, which is used in Kindergarten Year 1, with the Farm Centre a suggested centre to create in this theme.

We encourage teachers to make a Farm Centre outside to help the children to learn about how plants grow and how to look after plants.  Having experienced making a Farm Centre at our offices provides great insight which can be shared with the teachers.

Not all schools have a suitable area right outside to plant sample crops, and in those cases we have seen teachers get creative and use old water bags and up-cycled containers to grow plants in.

It looks like our team have had a fantastic crop of cassava! Other plants they are growing include pepper and cocoyam!

Cassava is used to make Fufu – this explains why Robert, Preset Training Manager (pictured right with Theo, Training Officer) is looking particularly delighted as he is the biggest Fufu fan in our Sabre family!