Outreach Program: Let Magdalen come to you!

Child led school grounds projects:

We are delighted to have received funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund to help local schools to enhance their school grounds and to provide a range of activities to deepen children's understanding of sustainability and local heritage, through our Land Heritage in Action programme.

This unique programme provides children with an inspiring and practical opportunity to explore sustainable living and local heritage through memorable, muddy and hands-on activities. It combines a tailor-made day-visit to Magdalen with practical follow-up sessions at schools.

During our outreach sessions we work with children and staff to create unique school grounds features which provide not only a lasting interactive way to explore sustainable food issues, but also aim to bring beauty, colour and interest to school grounds for the whole school community to enjoy.

As part of this programme we can work with your pupils to create:

Cob bread ovens
Living willow sculptures, tunnels and domes
Raised bed vegetable gardens
Sensory gardens
Recycled gardens

To find out more or to arrange for us to come to your school for a free pre-visit to discuss ideas and possibilities with staff and pupils please download our information pack or contact us.

Download our Forest School information pack

Forest School

Our 'Forest School' programmes run throughout the year. Participating children have the opportunity to take part in a variety of activities which reflect the rhythms and changes of the seasons. All of our activities help to bring the national curriculum to life, through inventive, memorable and meaningful activities and games that make learning irresistible. Children use full sized tools, play, learn boundaries of behaviour; both physical and social, establish and grow in confidence, self-esteem and become more self motivated.

Below are examples of some of the popular themes which can be woven in to a long term programme or a one off event:

Survival skills:
Hands-on, practical skill sessions including fire-lighting , campfire cooking and shelter-building.

Woodland whittling:
Learning to safely use essential woodland tools to transform nature’s resources into beautiful and useful artefacts to take home or enhance the site.

Environmental art and sculptures:
Exploring and experimenting with colour, texture and light to create a gallery of sculptures and art work made from nature’s pallet.

Storytelling and eco-drama:
With a little help from drama bags, story lines and nature’s props, children will fire up their imaginations to weave woodland tales and perform plays in their own forest theatres.

Darwin days:
Children will have opportunities to investigate woodland ecosystems through a variety of exploratory missions, games and craft activities.

Expeditions and mapping:
A multitude of quests, sensory mapping and orienteering challenges to bring map reading to life.

Exploring the elements:
Dynamic activities focusing on the wonder of nature felt through the senses.

These themes are just a sample, please contact us if you have any other specific themes or subjects you would like your pupils to explore.

Forest School has the most impact when undertaken as a long term weekly or fortnightly programme over a term or an academic year, however we can also run shorter taster sessions if preferred.

We can run Forest School sessions at your school or at our farm. Alternatively, if you feel your school grounds are not sufficient for forest school, Tilda Western can to offer help and advice and help you to develop links with local landowners who may be able to provide you with some local woods that will provide children with a safe and stimulating environment in which they can explore, learn and have fun.

Our forest school programmes are often combined with our other outreach work so that children play an active role in enhancing their very own forest school area through the creation of features such as cob ovens, willow domes and hurdles and herb gardens for use in all of their outdoor cook outs.

Day visits

Our day visits provide local schools with a unique opportunity for your pupils to spend a day experiencing and exploring our 132 acre organic outdoor classroom at the Magdalen Project, taking part in a range of fun, hands-on activities based on food, farming and local rural heritage, with experienced staff, in safe and stimulating surroundings. We work with children from pre-school upwards – and can create a programme that is tailor made to meet the needs of each individual group depending on curriculum needs and group requirements. Below are a sample of some of the activities your class can get involved in:

From field to fork:
explore, plant, water, harvest and taste our organic fruit and vegetables.

Pizza making:
make and feast on pizzas cooked in our outdoor wood fired, clay oven

Earth building:
dig, stomp and mould cob bricks using Magdalen clay and straw

Milling around:
plant, harvest, grind and make bread from our heritage seed

Survival in the wild:
looking at how early Britons might have survived, make shelters, light fires with flint and collect wild food in our woodlands.

Willow crafts:
create garden features and crafts from willow harvested from our withy beds

From fleece to fabric:
make felt items from our organic sheep wool and experiment with natural dyes.

Animal antics:
meet and feed our free range organic farm animals.

Trash to treasure:
design and create fun practical features in our recycled garden. Make music on our musical washing line!

These are just a selection of some of our more popular courses, we can offer many more, please contact us for more ideas.

Download our Coombe Farm information pack

Free Dairy Days at Magdalen and Coombe Farm

In 2007 we teamed up with neighbouring Coombe Farm, a 1500 hectare organic dairy farm to offer free day visits for local schools - that will take pupils on an exciting journey from 'sun to smoothy'.

The day visits combine hands on activities both here at Magdalen and at Coombe Farm - for the full organic sensory experience! Children are introduced to organic food and farming through a morning of muddy, fun and meaningful activities at Magdalen such as pizza making in our outdoor cob oven, scarecrow making and vegetable gardening. The afternoon visit to Coombe Farm provides children with a unique opportunity to see for themselves exactly how an organic dairy farm operates, including a tour of the dairy, pedal powered organic smoothy making and of course lots of free samples of Coombe Farm's dairy produce to feast on!

To find out more about any of our Day visits or Outreach Programmes please contact Tilda Western, our Local Schools Outreach Officer
Tel: 01460 30144, extension 30