Pheasant Friday
Normalising game birds as local, seasonal, nutritionally dense food source.
"Exmoor Game School has delivered over 1,400 hands-on wild meat experiences to children across Exmoor and the surrounding areas."
Darren Sherwood, Founder of Exmoor Game School
Objectives of Pheasant Fridays
- Normalise Real Food: Extend the classroom experience into the home to normalise game as an everyday food source within local families.
- Encourage Hands-on Learning: Provide children and their parents with practical opportunities to prepare and cook locally sourced game birds.
- Build Confidence and Competence: Inspire confidence in children by empowering them to complete a meaningful task - preparing food for their family.
- Promote Critical Thinking: Get children thinking critically about food production, consumption, and the ethical issues surrounding farming and game shooting.
- Create Sustainable Community Links: Establish lasting relationships between local schools and shooting estates, fostering a self-sustaining model for the project's future.
1
The Take Home Rota
For schools where we have already conducted a hands-on session, the Pheasant Friday project will introduce a weekly rota. On a designated Friday, we will return to the school at the end of the day with 50 brace of pheasants. Children who have participated in a previous session or just want to give it a go will be able to take a brace home.
To support this take-home element, we have produced an accompanying YouTube video that parents can use to follow along with their children. This approach will achieve several things:
- It provides genuine access to high-quality, locally produced food.
- It facilitates a unique, hands-on interaction with food in homes where this might not typically happen.
- It allows parents to witness their children's engagement, which will hopefully inspire them to involve the children more in home cooking.
2
New School Sessions
The second element of the project is to run new sessions in schools that we have not yet visited. These sessions are crucial as they allow new schools to be added to the take-home rota.
These workshops are more than just teaching the literal skill of breasting a bird; they delve into the moral and ethical questions of food production.
This helps children think critically and form their own well-informed opinions on the production and consumption of game and meat more widely.
Sustainability & Long Term Vision
With the right initial support, we are confident this initiative will capture the imagination of the wider community and become self-sustaining. The birds will be offered for free, with an option for families to make a donation to support the project's continued operation.
Additionally, on Pheasant Friday, we will make prepared game available for sale, further increasing the consumption of quality food in local households while also supporting the initiative financially.
In the long term, we envision a model where local shoots provide the game directly to the schools they have a relationship with. This would create a lasting and direct link between local schools and shoots, ensuring the project's continuity and long-term success.
Would you Like To Participate?
If you're connected to schools or shoots and you'd like to participate in this project, please get in touch. We'd love to hear from you.
