CHILDREN at a farm school nursery are to appear in a new series on CBeebies.

JB Gill, CBeebies presenter and former JLS singer, spent a day at Mini Explorers Nursery in Little Holtby, near Bedale, filming for his new children’s series 'Down on the Farm'.

The nursery, dubbed the UK’s first Farm School Nursery, was chosen because of its setting on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, and its ethos of teaching children about the farming landscape and way of life.

In the programme, the children proudly showed JB around their farm school, and introduced him to some of their latest projects with a little help from farmer Mark Pybus.

Known to the children as Farmer Mark, he said: "People tend to think of deep mid-winter as being a pretty quiet time in the farming calendar, but there’s still a lot of work going on behind the scenes to make sure we have a productive harvest later in the year.

"We have been teaching the children all about soil management, and explaining how the work we do now to prepare the soil for drilling in spring will ultimately affect the quality and quantity of what we produce."

Mr Pybus, whose wife Steph founded the nursery on the 260 acre family farm in 2012, had hoped to to take JB and the children out into the fields to learn about ploughing, but six inches of snow on the day put paid to that.

"That’s the beauty of farming though, it’s completely weather dependent and unpredictable and our children learn this from an early age," he said.

Instead, they went to the kitchen gardens and had great fun opening compost balls and digging the contents into the beds ready for planting later in the year.

This was followed by a trip to feed Mini Explorers’ flock of Herdwick sheep.

Mr Pybus said: "At Mini Explorers, we’re a tough bunch. Despite the freezing temperatures, our children know that farming doesn’t stop, and we had a great time filming with JB and the crew in the snow. The children can’t wait to see themselves on TV soon!"

'Down On The Farm', including the programme filmed at Mini Explorers, is due to air on CBeebies in February and March.