Leighton Hall Outdoor Education School Trip

Carnforth Lancashire LA5 9ST

Latest News: 14th January 2026
Leighton Hall, in Carnforth, Lancashire have two new outdoor packages for schools. 'Living Like Cavemen - A Stone Age Adventure' and 'An Orchard’s Tale' are available all year round for Key Stages 1 and 2.

Leighton Hall is famous for its Gillow furniture and is the lived-in family home of the Gillow Reynolds family.

Just 10 mins from junction 35 of the M6, Leighton has everything you need to give your pupils a truly immersive, educational and inspirational school visit. Child friendly gardens, experienced staff, state of the art fully-connected classroom hub, exciting outdoor facilities and qualified Outdoor Learning practitioners are just the start.

Just 10 mins from junction 35 of the M6, Leighton has everything you need to give your pupils a truly immersive, educational and inspirational school visit. Child friendly gardens, experienced staff, state of the art fully-connected classroom hub, exciting outdoor facilities and qualified Outdoor Learning practitioners are just the start.

There's 9 educational packages available which open up the world beyond the classroom window. Each visit includes complementary Key Stage 1 and 2 supporting materials and a full risk assessment. Choose from 2 indoor, 6 outdoor and 1 seasonal packages.

With the focus on hands-on immersion, bring history, ecology, confidence and new skills to life indoors and out: stepping into the shoes of past generations, discovering where "real" food comes from, learning foraging and supervised survival skills, and creating art from nature. There's even a free teacher's packs to help lighten the load.

Leighton Hall Outdoor Education photograph

school trip at Leighton Hall Outdoor Education

school groups Leighton Hall Outdoor Education

Leighton Hall Outdoor Education school groups

Teacher Checklist

Risk Assessments
Free Places for Teachers
Resource Packs
LOtC Quality Badge

What activities are available during educational visits?

Leighton Hall works in partnership with Larksfoot Forest School, to deliver KS1 & KS2 curriculum compatible Outdoor Learning Programmes.

• Living Like Cavemen
• An Orchard's Tale
• Survival Skills
• Food for Thought
• Seasonal Art
• Wildlife Habitats

LIVING LIKE CAVEMEN
A Stone Age Adventure
Ideal for Key stages 1 & 2
This exciting, hands-on experience helps children learn about the lives of early humans: how they found food, created cave drawings and made fire, and how their lives compare to ours today. Activities include fire lighting, fire safety, charcoal art, tool making and shelter building.

AN ORCHARD'S TALE
A Haven for Pollinators and Wildlife
Ideal for Key stages 1 & 2
Helping children to understand the importance of apple orchards, this session highlights the vital role of pollinators in food production and the human impact on nature. Activities include role play, visiting our bee hives, collecting and pressing apples, preparing food and cooking on an open fire.

SURVIVAL SKILLS
True breakout learning in a safe, natural environment
Ideal for Key Stages 1 and 2
Learn resilience, team-work, competences and confidence using play, exploration, and supported risk-taking. The supervised bushcraft and survival skills sessions are expertly taught and fun! Activities include shaping wood, making a shelter, lighting a fire, fire safety, and a role play "rescue".

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Sustainable skills to delicious discoveries
Ideal for Key Stages 1 & 2
Reconnect with where "real" food comes from, how to grow it, and changing tastes through time among Leighton's kitchen garden vegetables, herbs, fruit and flowers. Activities include supervised foraging walk identifying edible and non-edible plants, then cooking up a foraged feast in our outdoor kitchen.

SEASONAL ART
Creating crafts in partnership with the seasons
Ideal for Key Stages 1 & 2
Experience the colours, textures and patterns of the changing seasons in new light on an immersive 'collecting from nature' walk. Supervised activities include making fires, conker animals, whittling sticks, charcoal art and leaf-printing with natural dyes from foraged nuts, berries and fungi.

WILDLIFE HABITATS
Discovering a world of wonderful Wildlife
Ideal for Key Stages 1 & 2
Discover the different habitats and the animals and wildlife that live in Leighton's woods and gardens. Through hands on activities, students will learn to recognise tracks, eating and nesting habits and working as a team they'll explore the relationship between the human and animal world and make an animal friend to take home and take care of.

Which curriculum topics do we cater for?

Art School Trip

Craft Painting

Seasonal Art: lets your pupils create crafts in partnership with the seasons. Activities include: making leaf and charcoal art, conker animals, collecting leaves to print, sticks to whittle, and nuts, berries and fungi to make natural dyes.

Food School Trip

Where food comes from

Explore the fruit and vegetables in Leighton’s kitchen garden. Learn where real food comes from, how we grow it, and changing tastes through time. Then enjoy a supervised foraging walk to identify edible and non-edible plants.

Fieldstudies School Trip

Sustainability Ecosystems Ecology

Field Studies: Leighton Hall are working in partnership with Larksfoot Forest School practitioners to bring outdoor learning to key stage 1 and 2 pupils through four brand new outdoor learning packages. Taking place outside in the grounds of Leighton Hall, there's a yurt shelter, weatherproof woodland circle, fire pit, maze, playground and woodland trails for acres of exercise and fun.
Activities include: mapping, field studies, habitats, pond dipping and fieldwork and investigations

Forest School School Trip

Unique hands-on learning, with fully supervised sessions in forest school, bushcraft and survival skills and a role play “rescue”. Including shaping wood, making a shelter, lighting a fire and fire safety. Activities include: Building a camp fire, wood whittling, making a shelter and foraging.

Sustainability School Trip

Climate change Conservation

Partnering with Larksfoot Outdoor practitioners the children learn about sustainability and the environment. Annually we run a community project where local schools and youth groups come to plant 20,000 bulbs and help in the garden. Activities for pupils include: Sustainability, conservation, environment studies, and habitats

What size groups do we cater for?

Educational visits are for groups of 30 to a maximum of 60

On-site classroom facilities?

Yes.
The Studio
The Studio is a new, purpose built, warm and comfortable building situated near the tearoom garden, at the side of the main house. There's a kitchen area, cloakroom and an indoor space which seats 30 in theatre style seating or up to 16 at desks.
Use of The Studio includes:
• Wifi
• Fibre optic B4RN broadband
• Overhead projector and screen
• Printer
• Tea and coffee making facilities
• Use of cooker, microwave and fridge
• Lockable cupboards
• Cool drinking water

MATERIALS AND RESOURCES AVAILABLE:
Free: Teachers' notes available for pre-visit planning
Free: Teachers' pack
Free: Kit list, itineraries
Free: Curriculum-linked worksheets and lesson plans for ongoing projects
Free: Downloadable worksheets to continue your learning back in the classroom
Free: Full risk assessments are completed ready for you

Is there first aid on site?

Yes, we have a first aider and our staff are first aid trained, but we welcome teachers with first aid experience and always recommend that school bring someone with them that knows about pupil’s allergies and regular medicines.

Access for visitors with disabilities

The Halls first floor is inaccessible for wheel chairs users. There are disabled toilet facilities, very few steps and ramps where needed.

Visitors with Special Educational Needs (SEN)

Our forest school trained staff always deliver an appropriate day which is accessible to all levels. They are trained on providing child informed sessions and can meet the level of any given group.

Where a full session outside is too much for groups, we can run a flexible timetable to meet the needs of the group.

We have access to inside spaces so that lunch and getting ready can be done in a warm and safe environment with a table and chair set up, or floor matting as appropriate.

Many of our groups have different sensory needs and we are equipped to adapt to those as required.

We employ staff with a variety of training and experiences to meet the needs of different groups.

By working with individual teachers we are able to better meet the needs of those with complex groups.

We will:
- Provide an additional breakout space for students who need time out.
- Provide an on the day briefing for 1-1 school staff so that they are more confident within the space.
- Remove specific activities where it can be inaccessible for certain members of the group (for example long walks or foraging activities, etc)
- Use sites nearer to the main house for groups with mobility difficulties.
- Listen to the weather and shorten the day and condense the content where required.

Unfortunately, we have no accessible toilets and some of the grounds of the hall can be inaccessible to wheelchairs in wet weather.

Anything else?

FACILITIES:

• Approved by Lancashire County Council
• Comprehensive Teachers' Pack with activity sheets
• Gift Shop
• Purpose built classroom
• Woodland Log Circle and fire pit outdoor learning area
• Tearoom
• Indoor and outdoor picnic area
• Indoor and outdoor activities
• Toilets
• Free birds of prey display (Open days only. Weather permitting. May - September)
• Ice cream, cakes and treats
• Places to leaves coats and dirty wellies
• Outdoor play area
• Caterpillar Maze
• Tree Face Trail
• Woodland walk
• Free and easy parking
• Risk assessments available
• Itinerary already done for you

PRICING INFORMATION
Outdoor Learning £14 inc Vat per pupil
Free teachers places (1 free adult per 10 children)
Familiarisation visits are free of charge
Free parking
DO NOT FOLLOW YOUR SAT NAV. Follow the brown tourism signs from Junction 35 of the M6

Who are Leighton Hall?

Award winning Leighton Hall is the lived-in house of the famous furniture making Gillow dynasty. Children are invited to unravel the fascinating past of this ancient, Lancashire family and see how we used to live. As well as the house and grounds, Leighton has a new educational hub, comprising a purpose-built classroom, a pollinator friendly walled garden and shelter and a weather proof woodland log circle with its own fire pit.
For golden time, children enjoy inspecting Bee Corner and the Insect Hotel as well as chasing around the caterpillar maze, play area, Tree Face Trial and Woodland Walk.
Open all year round to pre booked school groups.