Sheep shearing has become an eagerly-awaited annual event for Dimson Day Nursery's children, staff, and local community.
Around 300 people, including nursery parents, local nurseries, schools, childminders, pre-schools and childcare students, flocked to the nursery's ten-acre small holding in Gunnislake, Cornwall, last month to watch ten sheep get sheared by Tim French, son of nursery owner Patricia French. Representatives from the Eden Project, Cornwall Play and the Sensory Trust also attended the event, which is always held on the second Tuesday in May and has grown in popularity over the past 18 years. Invitations are sent to local schools and nurseries and the day is also advertised through posters, in the local newspaper, on the internet and by word of mouth.
Aelene French, the nursery owner's daughter, explains, 'The sheep shearing has to be done every year and, after seeing how much our nursery children enjoyed watching, we decided to invite people to watch and make a day of it. People travel from quite far afield, with a tutor and childcare students even driving for two hours from Truro College this year.
'The event is a great way for us to involve parents and build and maintain relationships with local schools and nurseries. It gives our nursery good local publicity and enables lots of people to come and see our facilities. We enjoy speaking to the staff from the other nurseries and sharing ideas - they are always amazed at how much outdoor space we have.'
All the children mingle together, with the children from Dimson gaining confidence from taking control and showing the others around. This year they particularly enjoyed showing other children how to jump on to the rope swing.
Pet lamb
The highlight of the day is when Dimson's four-year-old pet sheep Bam Bam is sheared. He was rejected by his mother when she gave birth to triplets. He was almost dead when he was found abandoned in the field, but he was warmed up by the Rayburn cooker and bottle-fed by the children back to health. The sheep are usually sent to slaughter each autumn for meat, which is then sold to the nursery parents. However, Bam Bam will never become lamb chops, as he now has 'pet' status. He regularly accompanies the children to forest school and joins in with their games.
The day's commentator is Martin Allison, a Royal Marine who has recently returned from duty in Afghanistan. He specially announced the shearing of Bam Bam, who was then proudly paraded. This year there was another orphan lamb, called Spot, which some of the children bottle-fed.
Ms French believes it is important to interest and educate people in the outdoors and nature. The shearing day helps to teach everone about meat and wool and where it comes from. It is explained that sheep grow a fleece to keep them warm during the cold winter months. Sheep used to naturally shed their woolly coats in summer, but modern animals which have been bred for wool are no longer capable of this, so they are sheared, nowadays with electric clippers. Visitors get to see and stroke the sheep before and after they are sheared to appreciate the difference.
The fleeces were given to the visiting settings for them to use and explore. Children also enjoyed wool-related arts and crafts on the day, such as nursery nurse Joanna Humphrey demonstrating spinning wool on a spinning wheel and showing how it can be used for knitting jumpers. Will Earl, a nursery parent and drama teacher, led drama sessions where the children pretended to be farm animals.
Everyone was welcome to look around the farm, meeting the guinea pigs, chickens, ducks, pigs and ponies the nursery children help care for.
Ms French says, 'Being with and looking after the animals helps teach children about being responsible for other living things which are dependant on us and therefore must have priority. This instills conscious caring, an important area of development when building relationships with others.'
