Woodland base in forest

A year of our nature-education programme

As the snowdrops and bluebells start to poke their way out into the New Year, it gives us time to pause and reflect on how we have grown over the last 18 months since we first welcomed schools to our education programme in our rewilding project. 

Since the beginning, our mission has always been to inspire, immerse and reconnect everyone with nature, nurturing a sense of belonging and restoring mind, body and soul. We hope this will engender a responsibility and a hope that people become passionate custodians of the natural world. 

Sitting beneath the woodland canopy, listening to the natural wonders of birdsong, you can’t fault the magic that you feel in our rewilding project. Many of last year’s days were filled with the sounds of children splashing in the river and the smells of elderflower fritters or stinging nettle pancakes cooking on a campfire, whilst our Tamworth pigs, Tallulah and Delilah, foraged the woodland floors around our guests. 

“Rewilding is a really good idea – this was my favourite ever trip!” Megan aged 9

Kids playing in the rewilding project

LOOKING BACK ON THE YEAR

2022 was an incredible year of growth for us at Belmont. Not only did our education offering expand, but so did the number of people that we welcomed to the site. We are proud to be welcoming over 3000 people to our nature education programme each year. In 2022, 1500 school children visited us during 53 school visits whilst 600 children joined us at BE Wild Family Days, Rewilders sessions and ‘Kids Only’ holiday clubs. From toddlers to university students and to adults referred through our Green Social Prescribing pilot, we have tried to reach all areas of our community with our nature connection experiences. 

“Last week’s trip was so great! All children and parents have fed back to me that they absolutely loved the experience, learnt so much and were blown away by the setting.” – Teacher, Hannah More Primary 

Children’s free-play in the forest

Not only have we welcomed schools and families, but we also worked with a number of charities and like-minded organisations including Community of Purpose, Sustainable Food Trust and the College of Medicine. Last summer, we worked with CoP on their Break Free holiday programme to combat holiday hunger. We are extremely proud of the number of children we were able to reach from some of Bristol’s most deprived areas through this collaborative programme. The feedback provided by the children was incredibly positive with 98% saying they wished to return and 93% saying they had learnt new things. We truly believe that collaboration and connection between people inspires mass positive change, and we want to be a facilitator of this change. 

“This was the highlight for many of the young people. Thank you for making their learnings so engaging and fun! You should be really proud of what you’ve created at Belmont!” – CEO, Community of Purpose 

THE HIGHLIGHTS

Some of our personal highlights from the year have been seeing children overcome personal fears, listening to visitors of all ages asking endless questions as they ponder over the meaning of rewilding and watching people smiling whilst ‘playing’ in nature. 

Receiving positive and meaningful feedback from teachers, social workers and families about their experiences is always a great opportunity for reflection. So far it seems that everyone is entranced by the magic of this wild space. One participant from our GSP project reported that her friends and family noticed a positive change in her, hearing the happiness in her voice, after a very difficult time in her life. This type of feedback reminds us daily of the real-life impact of spending time in and connecting with nature and is the reason we are passionate about what we do here at Belmont. 

We are very much looking forward to the year ahead. We have a full schedule of bookings for this academic year and we’re looking forward to expanding our programme to reach an even wider variety of schools and settings in Bristol, so people across the wider community can benefit from nature connection and return over and over again. 

Nic, Outdoor Education Lead