BHS Programmes
BHS Pony Stars
New Leaf Triangle (cic) offers British Horse Society (BHS) Pony Stars to our younger students. Pony Stars is the BHS Junior Challenge Awards scheme helping children to discover, develop and nurture their love for ponies and the outdoors. With over 100 topics for children to explore, Pony Stars will ignite a passion for ponies, build knowledge and cement friendships that will last a lifetime.
As part of the programme, each child receives their own Challenge Book to log their achievements. As they progress through the various challenges there will be stickers, badges and rosettes up for grabs too to keep them engaged and motivated.
With four key groups, Pony Stars enables long-term progression with a range of activities that will develop knowledge, skills and self-confidence. In each group your child will work through sets of challenges that make up topics within set themes.
There are six themes to work through within each book: Golden Groom, Pet Protector, Junior Jockey, Equine Explorer, Stable Star and Helping Hero. The broad range of topics allow for students to learn not only about horses and how to care for them, but also about the world around them.
Children really enjoy working one these awards and particularly enjoy exploring the local environment with the ponies.
BHS Changing Lives Through Horses
New Leaf Triangle (cic) offers the British Horse Society (BHS) ‘Changing Lives Through Horses Programme’.
Changing Lives Through Horses programme was developed by the BHS, with other professionals, to meet the needs of young people aged 5 to 25 disengaged, or at risk of disengaging from education. New Leaf Triangle staff have received training to become coaches on the programme.
Using horses as the inspiration for positive change, the programme provides an alternative learning environment to mainstream education. The skills developed through the programme meet the requirements of ongoing education and training, employers and participants. The course includes basic horse care and riding and has six generic learning strands going through it, with a focus on developing key life skills through working with the horses: communication, confidence, teamwork, relationships, responsibility and personal achievement. These key skills are assessed regularly throughout the programme.
There are two different pathways learners can choose from. Achieve Awards, aimed at students aged 5-11, include 10 awards for Stable Management and 6 for Riding, with a BHS certificate at each stage. Each award is broken down to 4 easily achievable challenges such as grooming a horse, completing health checks and learning to feed the horses. There are further awards that can be achieved, for example, for wildlife conservation work or making horse jumps. Alternatively older students can work through the Explorer Challenge Awards, set to challenge the older students with a more in depth level of horse care and riding taught. The award is split into different sections including handling horses, caring for the horse, lunging and riding safely on the road. There are two levels, bronze and silver, so that students can work on the level most suitable to their existing knowledge. These can then be used as a stepping stone for students to transition to recognised industry qualifications if they so wish.
