IT was the late British naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell who said that all children should be surrounded by animals and books, so he would have enjoyed seeing schools that enrich the educational experience with their own animals. These vary from full-blown zoos to a few beehives, but each institution acknowledges the many advantages that they bring.
Kingham Hill School in Oxfordshire has sheep, goats, chickens, guinea pigs, a tortoise and a Shetland pony called Finn. The school was founded in the late 19th century on the Daylesford estate and, in those days, it had its own farm. ‘We are going back to our roots,’ says Isobel Frampton, who runs this section of the school’s co-curricular offering. ‘It is not a petting farm,’ she emphasises. ‘The children have
