Fairfield Farm College End of Year Report

Fairfield Farm College is a registered charity delivering education and training to young people with learning difficulties and disabilities to prepare them for living and working.

The college works closely with the local authority and special schools in and around the area to make sure that the programmes on offer meet the ever-changing needs of young people from across Wiltshire and surrounding areas.

The college continues to grow with 67 day students and 27 young people accessing residential services from respite and short-breaks, through to full 52-week placements.  Each student follows an individual programme and the curriculum is constantly changing to meet needs.

Last year the college made adaptations to enable young people with higher levels of need, both learning and physically, these included a wet room, hoist and medical area as well as a sensory room.  The introduction of the Post Office has brought increased custom to the shop and cafe, making these areas very realistic work experience opportunities to develop skills to support future employment.  Last year out of 12 leavers, two secured supported internships, one paid employment, five voluntary positions in their communities, three went on to further training and one secured a traineeship.

The college has plans to continue to increase student numbers as well as residential opportunities for young people next year. We have submitted plans to develop an indoor sports and equestrian facility on the site to increase opportunities for students, as well as community access. This is reliant on fundraising.

We are redeveloping the play area and animal walk for community use and building a new greenhouse for students to grow plants to sell in the farm shop.  We are embarking on an enterprise programme to design, produce and sell items in the shop, encouraging our students to be entrepreneurs of the future.