Hello from Ramsgrange Community School, Co Wexford. We are a small group of first and second year students who have a passion for farming. The school chaplain, Miss McCabe, started up a farmer’s group so that we could meet students who have the same interests.
Every Thursday at lunchtime we meet in room 19. We get a bundle of Irish Farmers Journals delivered each week – thanks to Miss Dunne. At farmer’s club, we read “The Journal” and talk about all things farming.
Each member of our group has a favourite model of tractor and we debate and discuss often which tractor is the best
Sometimes we look at videos about tractors or harvesters. One of our group, Danny, has a drone and makes brilliant footage of tractor runs and harvest time. Danny has his own social media where he shares his work.
In school, Miss Hearne teaches English and is the Junior Certificate School Programme (JCSP) co-ordinator as well as looking after the school library – she makes sure we have lots of reading material. Miss Hearne delivers lots of farming and tractor magazines to our group. Thank you Miss Hearne.
All of the group love helping out on their farms at home. David is always counting down to silage season – it’s his favourite time of the year.
Our group loves getting involved in local tractor runs. Philip enjoys going on tractor runs with his older brothers. Cathal and Jack spend time with their grandads farming at the weekends. Paul helps out on the dairy farm at home and Reuben and PJ both have an interest in tillage farming. Fionn likes to help out on his uncle’s farm.
Each member of our group has a favourite model of tractor and we debate and discuss often which tractor is the best. We still haven’t reached an agreement on this!
Last term, we went on a visit to Kildalton Agricultural College. We were the only junior group at the open day last year. We got a tour of the campus and we got to speak with the lecturers.
We love coming together and chatting, eat biscuits and reading the paper
It was a brilliant day out and we really enjoyed it. We have other trips planned before the end of the year. We are thinking of visiting a snail farm and maybe a local dairy farm that uses robots to milk the cows.
This week, a group of transition year students are coming to our meeting to talk to us about farm safety. Sixth year Ag Science students sometimes drop in as well.
We all agree that farming club is our favourite hour of the week. We love coming together and chatting, eat biscuits and reading the paper. We meet in a relaxed atmosphere and it is a great break from school work. It is good for our wellbeing.
One of our students, Jack has recently asked if we can start a blog so we will be working on that over the next few weeks. Our club is an inclusive club – all who are interested in farming are welcome.
IFJ Junior: ‘Don’t squeeze the udder too hard and you’ll be grand’
Tillage scheme a positive but leaves farmers in a quandary none the less