PUPILS will be given the chance to care for animals and grow vegetables on their school field.

A section of the playing field at Bardfield Primary School, in Vange, is being turned into a smallholding.

There will be two paddocks, where animals from chickens to alpacas can be cared for by the children, space for allotments where produce can be grown, and flowerbeds where the children can plant flowers.

Headteacher Marilyn Hamp-ton said she hoped the food grown in the allotments could be used for school dinners and they could also start a swap shop where parents and residents could swap other vegetables for produce grown in the garden.

She said: “The children are really excited about it. This really is one of the first times I have seen a school community really come together to work on a project. It is something all the classes in the school will work on.

“The children will have lots of jobs, from feeding the animals to watering the plants.

“It’s all about them taking responsibility for something and knowing it is theirs and they have worked hard for it.”

Mrs Hampton, who has been headteacher at the Clay Hill Road school for four years, said the school hopes the smallholding will be open by March.

The scheme has cost the school £10,000 from its budget.

Mrs Hampton added: “We have been planning this project for about a year. To see the fencing going up is great.

“We are also going to get in a horticulturalist, who is going to show the children how to plant bulbs properly.

“We have got lots of different useful contacts, like a local farm which is going to give us the animals during term time, so the children can learn to take care of them.

“The children tell us all the time they love to learn outside and for us this is just the start.”