Education
School Visits
Meynell Langley welcomes schools to bring groups of children to experience the countryside and spend time interacting with the natural world.
Who leads the visits?
Godfrey Meynell
Godfrey has farmed Lodge Farm, Meynell Langley organically for three decades and also has a masters degree in Conservation Biology. He has a wealth of knowledge about the land, plants and animals, as well as environmental and sustainability issues.
Helen Meynell
Helen has worked alongside Godfrey in managing the land and estate and is also a qualified teacher with a huge enthusiasm for giving children chance to spend active learning time in the outdoors, boosting their wellbeing and confidence whilst building an understanding of the natural world.
Together, Helen and Godfrey have welcomed numerous groups of young people to Meynell Langley, and strive to develop links with schools to enable children to visit regularly and form meaningful connections with the countryside.
Why visit, and what will it cost?
Learning outside the classroom has enormous potential to engage students of all ages, and Helen and Godfrey have many years of experience of working with teachers to deliver carefully planned visits which support the curriculum. The estate and farms offer fantastic opportunities for fieldwork, which can often be adapted to specific topics or modules being taught in school. Our main area of expertise is the primary science curriculum, but many activities lend themselves to learning objectives in geography, art, PSHE or English, and other subject content can easily be delivered in the outdoors with a little imagination!
We are able to offer a number of funded visits each year, as part of Natural England’s Countryside Stewardship Educational Access programme. Please enquire for availability and eligibility. Please note, the funding does not cover transport to and from Meynell Langley, and it is the responsibility of the school to arrange and pay for coaches or minibuses. For very local schools it may be possible for children to be dropped off and picked up by parents and registered on arrival, thereby avoiding the need for a coach or minibus.
What can we do at Meynell Langley?
Food and Farming
Meet cattle in the big barn and see sheep in the fields, finding out what they eat and how they are looked after on the estate. In an arable field, see crops as they grow, and grind wheat in a hand grinder to make flour. See fruit production in action in the orchards, smelling the blossom and spotting the bumblebees in the spring or picking apples when they are ripe in the autumn.
Plants
Both wild and cultivated plants grow here in abundance. Explore parts of plants and their functions, sequence plant life cycles, observe pollination of flowering plants and have a go at sorting and classifying trees, leaves, flowers using identification keys.
Animals
Learn about animal life cycles and reproduction, diets, bones and muscles and classification with a focus on cows, sheep, horses or a native wild mammal such as a badger. Or hunt for minibeasts – you’ll find many different invertebrates on a day out at Meynell Langley.
Wildlife and Habitats
The habitats to explore are plentiful, with grazed and ungrazed grassland and wildflower meadows, ancient woodland and parkland, streams, ponds and hedgerows. Try plant and animal identification and classification, and learn simple techniques such as kick sampling for freshwater invertebrates or use of sweep nets in the meadows and hedges.
Meynell Langley Hall 