Bethel - Sheep & Co are on the timetable

The path to the school farm leads through the forest. Chestnut and beech trees sway their leaves in the wind. Beds around the historic building are surrounded by small quarry stone walls. They wear caps made of velvety moss. Old breeds of domestic animals live in the courtyard. Birds chirp. Pigeons coo. And children from the Bethel Mamre Patmos School run off in their wellies towards the vegetable garden. They quickly check whether the radishes they have sown themselves have grown.

Once a week, the class from the special school travels to the green idyll with their teacher Joachim Heintz and school assistants for the children with complex disabilities. The aim: "Our pupils should experience nature in its annual cycle. How do the plants and animals develop? Many children don't even know this anymore," says the special needs teacher. "Here they can learn to treat animals and nature with respect."

Children standing by the pig enclosure
Boy strokes sheep

On the school farm, everyone can experience first-hand how small piglets become big, bristly pigs and lambs become sheep. Eggs are x-rayed so that the children can observe the chicks through their shells. And the trees, which bear white blossoms in spring, entice with juicy apples in autumn.

Girl at the vegetable patch

Most of them are happy to tend to the vegetable patches - and even eat previously spurned radishes. But the animals are everyone's favourite. Bentheim piglets Jack and Joe come round the corner grunting when they hear the pupils. But 13-year-old Janno thinks the sheep are better. "They're soooo cosy," he says, stroking a little lamb that sticks its head out of the barn. The flock of sheep will soon be heading back out to pasture. Back to school for the children. Next week they will be able to go back to the bed and see how everything has grown.

 

Text: Heike Lepkojis | Photos: Sarah Jonek

This story simply told

Once a week, the class from the Bethel special school in Bielefeld travels to a school farm. There, the pupils tend to the vegetable patches and stroke the sheep and pigs. On the farm, the children learn how to treat animals and nature with respect.

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    Mamre Patmos School
    Maraweg 29
    33619 Bielefeld

    0521 144-3674

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    The Mamre Patmos School is a special school run by the v. Bodelschwingh Foundation Bethel. 230 pupils with special educational needs in the areas of mental development and physical and motor development (here also in the learning programme) attend the school.

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