Working with primary schools

Children with hand lens

Credit Steve Finch

Outdoor learning: School educational visits & Farm visits

School educational visits to Foulshaw Moss Nature Reserve

Bring your class along to one of our morning or afternoon two hour sessions at our Foulshaw Moss Nature Reserve. They're on a Tuesday or Thursday during term times. 

You can expect the following from an educational visit at Foulshaw Moss Nature Reserve:

  • Welcome - a quick chat with the students at the carpark area covering health and safety and how to get the most out of their time on the nature reserve. 
  • Bird Hide - Find out about garden birds and how we can help them while watching the birds on the feeders.
  • Board Walk - Discussion on what is a peat bog, its depth and history.
  • Viewing Platform - What is Carbon and why a bog helps.
  • Osprey viewing Station - we will have a talk from Mathew, one of our volunteers, telling us the history of the ospreys here, and why osprey populations are on the up. We have the chance here to view the osprey nest.
  • Ponds - we will have a short pond dipping session followed by a break for refreshments.
  • Peat Cutters board walk - Discussion on reptiles followed by an activity in the outdoor classroom area.

Or, if there's a class topic that you're working on, we're happy to focus on that through your visit too. 

Interested? Email Danielle Chalmers 

Image of long horn cattle

Farm Visits

There are a number of excellent farms in Cumbria that welcome schools and groups. Some farms are eligible to apply for government funding on your behalf to help pay for your visit, so please ask for details when making any enquiries.

Here’s a shortlist that we’d currently recommend if you're interested in taking your group to a local farm (there are others too, but it may be that we haven’t visited or found them just yet). There are many people doing great things with outdoor education in Cumbria. Please let us know if you think we should include anyone we’ve not mentioned below.

Carlisle Area: Susan's farm, Houghton

Susan’s Farm specialises in pre-booked primary school visits, care farming for all ages and alternative education provision for secondary pupils.

Tell me more

Susan's farm website

Susan’s Farm has worked with thousands of people each year for many years, and received numerous national and local awards for its work. There are impressive indoor facilities including  a wonderful kitchen where food can be cooked for and even by visitors in the "gather, prepare, cook and eat" sessions which help them to learn all about food ‘from field to plate’.

This organic farm specialises in linking healthy soil to healthy children through healthy food. There are longhorn cattle, sheep, geese, hens and a fruit and vegetable business on the farm, as well as lots of wildlife habitat, from impressive hedges to a series of ponds and a woodland.

Penrith area: Herdwick School, Matterdale

Herdwick school web site

Part of a traditional Lake District farm with Herdwick sheep and more. Helen Rebanks welcomes pre-booked visits from schools, groups and families to come and learn more about this landscape, nature friendly farming, food, wool and a range of other interesting things, linked to the school curriculum.

Tell me more

They have indoor facilities in their ‘sheep shed school’ with everything you’d need for your visit.

Alongside the role this farm plays in the Lake District UNESCO world heritage site, Helen & James have also been working with a number of partners to develop the latest ideas to help local wildlife and habitats, and to help people consider what the future of Lake District farming will look like.

Kendal area: Strickley Farm, Old Hutton

Web site

This organic dairy farm is run by James & Michelle Robinson. Michelle is also an experienced primary school teacher and offers farming and wildlife-based visits which can be fully funded by Natural England.

Tell me more

It’s a working dairy farm with shorthorn cattle and some excellent wildlife habitats, created and cared for by the Robinson family since Victorian times. Strickley has full classroom and WC facilities available.

Visit themes offered include food, animal welfare, wildlife & habitats and more.

A top down view of magazines and guides on a wood background, with wildlife and people images on the front
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