Home-Education Groups: Learn Outdoors at Chillingham

Home-educating families are warmly welcome at Chillingham Wild Cattle Park. We offer flexible, hands-on outdoor learning tailored to mixed ages and interests — from ecology and map skills to forest-school activities in Wildling Woods, our dedicated forest learning area.

Whether you’d like a one-off visit, a short series, or a term-time block, we’ll shape the day to your group’s needs, the season, and what’s happening in the park.

What your visit can include

• Wild cattle ecology – Observe grazing, browsing, trampling and dunging, and how these behaviours shape habitats and food webs.

• Habitats & biodiversity – Explore species-rich pasture, woodland and streams; identify plants and freshwater invertebrates; discuss adaptation and seasonal change.

• Food chains/webs – Owl-pellet investigations and invertebrate surveys to connect evidence with real ecosystems.

• Geography & fieldwork – Map reading, orienting to landscape, simple compass work, grid references (scaled by age).

• Forest-school in Wildling Woods – Nature crafts, den building, use of hand-tools, sensory exploration; for older children, campfire safety, lighting, cooking and safe extinguishing (weather/conditions permitting).

• Creative & reflective tasks – Sketching, nature journaling, vocabulary building, and descriptive writing inspired by place.

Designed for mixed ages

Home-ed groups are often mixed-age — we’re used to that. We typically:

• Run parallel activity stations (simpler/advanced options at each),

• Or split briefly by confidence/age for part of the session, then regroup.

Practical information

• Group size: up to 20 learners per day (larger groups can be split across multiple days) with a minimum of 2 accompanying adults per 10 children

• Visit length: Half-day or full-day.

• Facilities: Toilets, handwashing, indoor/covered space for lunch.

• Safety & access: All activities risk-assessed; weather and site conditions checked on the day.

• What to bring: We’ll send a kit list before your visit tailored to planned activities and forecast (e.g., waterproofs, wellies/sunhats).

• Cost: Please contact us for current pricing/availability. At times we can offer free or subsidised sessions when external funding is available.

To discuss your needs please email Ellie on [email protected]