The Ark, Collingham: Meet the woman who has set up an educational farm in Yorkshire for disadvantaged children

Helen said it was a long time coming before finally embarking on it three years ago, having also raised three children, but she now wouldn’t change for the world what she and Kane are doing together, growing a thriving and in-demand smallholding of learning in the countryside, with animals of an ever-increasing number and variety.

“I worked in the Richmond Hill and Halton Moor areas of Leeds. I was mainly working with hard-to-reach families and supporting social workers and I saw many children struggling through no fault of their own.

“There are children who never leave the estate where they are born. There’s nowhere for them to go and often alternate provision for education wasn’t and still isn’t meeting their needs.

“These are children that never see the countryside, don’t see the lush green fields and don’t know where produce like eggs or meat come from other than Tesco or Lidl.

“Children sometimes need a different learning area, and an outside environment is something that can help them learn far more than in a classroom.

“We’re doing this for those kids. We’ve made somewhere for them to come where they can feel safe and learn, sometimes without knowing they are learning. The children are usually those that struggle with social, emotional and behavioural problems, including children that have autism, ADHD, that struggle in mainstream education.

“I’ve had this dream of working outside with animals and looking after children outdoors.

I know that animals and children work well together. Animals have always had a positive effect on my wellbeing and when I mentioned my dream to Kane he said let’s go for it.

First base for the idea to become reality was to get some land, not always the easiest of tasks. Fortunately, Helen was to find something appropriate relatively quickly.

“I had to find somewhere to make it happen and I found 5 acres of land that was being advertised to rent on Facebook, here at Collingham. It was just grassland and had nothing but 4 sheds, that was it.

“We’ve acquired some more land to rent since and now have 10 acres all in adjoining fields. We’ve put up fencing and have thirteen paddocks and we’ve transformed what were the sheds and stables.

Helen and Kane are both from equestrian backgrounds, which is how they met, but they had no farming knowledge and they have had to learn quickly.

“All of it has been a huge learning curve and everything we’ve done has been learning on the job. We never owned sheep before. I was on my own one morning when one of the ewes was struggling lambing. I rang the vet who said he wasn’t going to be able to get to me in time, so he talked me through it over the phone and told me everything I needed to do.

“I helped one of our ewes give birth. It was absolutely brilliant and brought me to tears. One of my proudest moments. The lamb wasn’t breathing, so I had to revive her, get her going. She turned out to be a really good little ewe, Bertha.

“We currently have eight Sheep, six horses, three goats and a multitude of chickens, quail and guinea pigs. We were going to put our six Suffolk-cross and Texel-cross ewes into lamb this year, but we didn’t get a ram in time so we are looking at buying orphan lambs in March/April to show how to care for them and will lamb again next year.

“I’m always on the lookout for animals, particularly where I see animals that need rehoming. I can’t say no to anything. We have lots of guinea pigs and small animals.

“Our three little goats are Toggenburgs and are about 18 months to 2 years old now. They will be in kid next year, so life will be increasingly about giving birth here as we also incubate a lot of eggs from our hens during Easter time and candle them so that children see the chick inside the egg and watch them hatch.

Eggs are also produced to be sold for consumption, from the hens and the quail, and Helen said this led to a project for the children

“The children designed and then made an honesty box to put at bottom of field, and passers-by buy the eggs.

“Even though we don’t sit down and teach things like Maths & English here the children are still learning those things because they have to measure out feed, weigh the animals and convert their weights to work out feed allocation. They also do a bit of basic Physics as they have to study the land and river levels as we are next to the River Wharfe.

Rosie, Fanta, Maggie and Gordon are four largely rescue ponies now enjoying a good life at The Ark where they have become stars of Helen and Kane’s world, and Helen’s daughter Ruby’s too.

“Our latest additions are two little foals, Daisy & Hunter that were being kept on grass near a disused pub in Richmond Hill.

Helen said that everything the children do is recorded to show their progress at The Ark.

“Every child has an individual profile which evidences all of what they do with us, which includes photographic evidence of all their skills and achievements – and they learn social skills, interacting with others, and they become like family. In many ways it’s not like we are working, because it is so enjoyable.

The Ark is also available for children’s parties and school holiday clubs.