Cost of living need not ground school trips!

We’re delighted to share that we have secured special funding to ensure school visits to the Hawk Conservancy Trust can still take flight with visit bursaries for deserving pupils from across the Hampshire region.

For some children, trips to places like the Trust are beyond their reach because financial pressures on schools and the cost-of-living crisis are making it harder for parents to support educational trips.  The Trust says this is detrimental to children’s experiences, their learning and to the charity’s mission to help the future of our planet by inspiring conservation through education.

Chief Executive Penny Smout said: “Our visitor centre near Andover is all about shining a light on the incredible world of birds of prey; our work to conserve them; and spreading the word to inspire more people to appreciate the wonders of wildlife and the need to look after it. One of our aims is to encourage pupils, from all walks of life, to follow a career path in conservation and that spark can come from a school visit. At the same time, we have research to show just how valuable being close to nature is for the wellbeing of us humans. Our hope is that with this funding, we can help bring all of those benefits to children who often don’t get the chance to experience such things.”

The Trust has been supported by the financial services company Investec to provide funds to enable the charity to support education in several ways.

Investec’s support has enabled us to specially design “Explore Nature” days. These will be offered to children who might not normally be in a position to visit to do so and meet our resident birds, experience our multiple daily flying displays and learn about the species, their habitats and conservation through fun workshops with our expert team.

We have also been awarded a separate grant from the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (ASAB) for a travel bursary to help fund transport costs for state-funded schools where high fuel and coach hire prices might be a financial barrier to some schools.

We’d love to hear from schools who feel they have pupils who could benefit from participation in “Explore Nature” days or bursary support.

Anyone wishing to learn more about educational visits to the Hawk Conservancy Trust should visit our Education webpages here.