Foundation Learning students win at the annual Jim Green Competition 2024

Our brilliant Foundation Learning students recently attended the annual Jim Green Challenge on the 13th March at the South of England Showground. The challenge is an annual event involving students with learning difficulties attending land-based colleges and further education centres with a focus on rural and agricultural skills.

This year, the event brought in 120 students from across Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, and was attended by the Society’s 2024 President, HRH The Duchess of Edinburgh. The students carried out practical competitions and evidence-based project work involving various skills such constructing a model sheep from recycled materials, arranging a vase with collected dried flowers, seed heads, grasses, twigs, and evergreens, creating a wooden toy with movable parts using hand-held tools only, baking vanilla sponge cupcakes adorned with sheep decorations, and cultivating various spring bulbs in a planter. 

Students also identified pond life, constructed a self-supporting scarecrow, and prepared a flowerbed with compost and tidied edges for Spring planting.  

Plumpton College Foundation Learning students received three prizes: 

• Level 1s First Prize for their scarecrow by Ryan Banbury and Jasmine Burley, who assembled it in front of judges!  

• Entry Level 3 Leanne Brothwell won the Award for Achievement  

• Entry Level 3 Leanne Brothwell and Kane Tobin – Second Prize in the Window Box Challenge.  

• Entry Level 3 James Warren was nominated to present a book on the history of Jim Green to HRH The Duchess of Edinburgh 

The event is held each year in honour of the Society’s founder of educational outreach programmes, Jim Green, who passed away in 1998. It is an opportunity to celebrate all that is great about agriculture, horticulture, and the countryside and reinforces that everyone can cherish the great outdoors regardless of their age, background, level of education, or physical capabilities.    

Thank you to all the students who attended and participated in the competition, and congratulations to the winners! 

If you’re leaving school or looking for extra support in your career, we offer various routes to get you where you want to go with a range of tailored programmes. Take a look at our range of Foundation Learning courses.