Higher Farm Education - What We Offer

 At Higher Farm Education, we provide specialist pathways designed to support young people with SEND to learn, grow, and thrive. Through practical, hands-on experiences in our unique farm-based environment, learners build confidence, develop life and vocational skills, and engage in therapeutic and educational programmes tailored to their individual needs. 

Higher Farm Education’s Alternative Provision is a specialist pathway for young people with SEND needs, including EHCPs, SEMH profiles, neurodiversity, and those who thrive in therapeutic, non-mainstream learning environments.

Learners engage in flexible full-day, part-time or bespoke programmes that integrate:

• Academic learning, including Functional Skills and embedded English and maths
   
• Vocational pathways, such as City & Guilds Animal and Horse Care qualifications
   
• Life skills development, independence and employability support
   
• Wellbeing and PSHE, with structured animal-assisted and equine interventions
   
• Therapy partnerships, including Occupational Therapy
   
• Trauma-informed, relational teaching, in safe indoor and outdoor farm environments
   

Delivered by our experienced support team, we help learners regain trust in education, build resilience, regulate emotions, achieve accredited qualifications, and prepare for further education, supported employment, or adulthood. 

This pathway is commissioned by schools, local authorities and families where mainstream or college settings are unsuitable, providing a hands-on, future-focused route to sustained engagement and progress.

Our Outreach Programme supports learners who remain on roll at their mainstream schools but benefit from structured, therapeutic sessions at our farm based education centre. Designed for part-time attendance, it offers a calm, animal-centred, outdoor learning environment that supports emotional regulation, confidence, social skills and engagement.

Sessions are tailored to each learner’s needs and can include:

• One-to-one or small-group specialist teaching and mentoring
   
• Equine-assisted and animal-centred experiential learning
   
• Social, emotional and mental health interventions
   
• Functional skills support, where appropriate
   
• Adventure and Forest School-based activities
   
• Parent and school liaison and progress reporting
   

Delivered by our friendly and dedicated support staff our 'Outreach' placements aim to stabilise learners, overcome barriers to learning, and prepare them to successfully reintegrate into their home school, transition to a new placement, or progress onto Higher Farm’s full Alternative Provision pathway.

Animal Assisted Intervention (AAI) at Higher Farm provides structured, hands-on sessions where children and young people with SEND can connect with our animals in a safe, nurturing environment. These sessions are carefully designed to support emotional wellbeing, self-regulation, confidence, social communication and engagement.

Sessions are available in one- or two-hour blocks, delivered individually or in small groups by experienced and caring staff.  AAI can be offered as a standalone therapeutic intervention or integrated into a learner’s wider educational programme, giving participants the opportunity to feel calm, build relationships, and develop the skills and confidence to engage positively with learning and life.