Sixth formers now able to learn on the land

Sedbergh School, which is close to the Cumbrian border with North Yorshire, has announced a joint venture with Newton Rigg College in Penrith.

Pupils choosing a new Btec subsidiary diploma in Agriculture, from September 2014, will spend one day a week based at the North Cumbrian college, benefiting from facilities including a £2m dairy unit, two farms, a Roundhouse beef finishing unit at the York campus, beef suckler herd of 30 Aberdeen Angus cows, three sheep flocks totalling 1,000 ewes and land including crops, raised peat bogs and wildflower meadows.

Newton Rigg, part of Askham Bryan College, is the fastest growing land-based college in the country and the only one to have its own hill farm and moorland.

Sedbergh School headmaster Andrew Fleck said: “The combination of practical and academic subjects provides an ideal platform for pupils to progress to higher education.”