COUNTRYSIDE EDUCATION TRUST

Business Description

The Countryside Education Trust was set up to give deprived and inner city children the chance to experience the countryside. At a time when the role of the countryside is under debate and the re-establishing of the link between our food and where it comes from is so important, the Trust seeks to enable children, our future careers of the environment, to learn about, understand and care for the countryside. The joy on their faces as they milk the goats, collect eggs from the hens or feed the pigs is all the reward we need to encourage us to keep the Trust and its aims alive.

We are proud to welcome some 20,000 people through our doors each year, to share and enjoy the countryside at our Centres. Since the Trust was founded over 250,000 children have had a ‘hands on’ experience of how the natural world works.

We provide activities for the whole community by running the residential ‘Out of Town Centre’ with its farm and educational garden attached, a fantastic award winning sustainably built and inspirational Treehouse Study Centre and a broad community programme. We offer children and the wider community a stimulating, sustainable ‘outdoor classroom'.

The Trust is dependent on fundraising and donations from people sympathetic to our aim, to re-connect children and adults with the countryside and all it has to offer, food, farming and nature.

Business Services
We are a registered charity established in 1975 devoted to countryside and environmental education in all its varied forms. We have grown over the years in stature and scope to become an organisation running a residential centre, (the Out of Town Centre), a field studies centre (the inspirational Treehouse Studies Centre), a farm and educational garden and a community programme. People come to us from all over the country. Our particular emphasis is on children and those at a disadvantage within our society.

We aim to be in the forefront of countryside education at this time of renewed interest and controversy. Our overall aim is promote and operate courses, activities and facilities which enable children and adults to learn about, understand and care for the countryside.

We exist to serve people’s needs whether they be for a school group, a youth organisation, an adult or recreational group or an individual. Come for the day or come and stay we will be delighted to welcome you.

Business Products
Residential and day visits for schools and colleges.
Community activities and courses.
Weekend and school holiday, group accommodation.
Farm garden and coppice produce.
Wedding receptions
Conferences

Business Qualifications
Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge
New Forest Marque

Business Memberships
Learning Outside the Classroom