After a busy few months of delivering workshops, Chris Hare, Project Manager, and Michael Blencowe, Local Wildlife Expert, reflect on their experiences working with schools across Hampshire.
Visiting Hampshire Schools: Chris Hare, Project Manager
What a busy start to the year we have had with our new South Downs for All Project with Hampshire Schools. Between January and April I delivered eight heritage workshops to our participating schools, while Michael Blencowe delivered workshops on the wildlife of the South Downs.
Six of the eight schools are in the Portsmouth/ Gosport area and many pupils who come from homes with low incomes and other challenging circumstances. The Friends of the South Downs believe it is vitally important that all children, whatever their backgrounds have a chance to experience the beauty of this outstanding landscape and to learn about its abundant heritage, including both history and natural history.
The good news is that both mine and Michael’s workshops have been very well received, with the children showing great enthusiasm and a real desire to learn. At every session we have run, eager hands have gone up in answer to questions from myself and Michael, or to ask us questions. There can be no doubt that we are doing very necessary work in promoting a love and understanding of the countryside and the South Downs in particular.
However, there was an aspect of these workshops that did rather surprise, even shocked me, and demonstrated the real need for this project. I would start my school sessions by asking the children if they knew what the South Downs were, where they were, and whether they had visited them. Only at one school – Buriton – which is in the heart of the South Downs – were the children able to identify the South Downs, or to even know they were hills. This should be a big wake-up call for all of us: we cannot rest on our laurels and assume that the rising generation will have the same joy and empathy for the downs that we have.
Yet, this should not be taken as a counsel of despair: we are addressing the problem and addressing it very successfully. I would like to share with you some of the feedback we have had from the teacher in the schools and from the pupils.
Chris Hare, Project Manager. Credit: Samuel Hare
From the Teachers
“Chris had a lovely manner with the children and kept them all engaged throughout the talk. Thank you- it was a great session.”
“Michael was so enthusiastic and shared many of his own experiences with the children. his passion for the wildlife on the South Downs shone through.”
“Chris Hare adapted vocabulary to age of children. He engaged them and took time to listen to their ideas and answer their questions.”
“Michael was absolutely fabulous – he was so engaging and captured the children’s attention with his humour and wit and this made for a very interesting and informative talk.”
From the Children
“It was a fun talk and interesting to learn about the chalk and the flint! Chris was very nice and was really passionate about this topic”.
‘” thought it was fun to learn about different types of animals I didn’t know about, where they live and what they eat and even how fast they can fly or move.”
“I really want to go the South Downs national park now!”
“The man was nice and the facts were nice. I didn’t know about the South Downs before and I liked that he knew about dinosaurs.”
“He was so funny and it was really good fun to listen to him talk about the ants nest which are lumps in the ground. I have actually seen this as I fell over one and they all crawled up my leg!”.
Chris Hare, Project Manager. Credit: Samuel Hare
Michael’s Feedback:
It’s been a real pleasure visiting schools across Hampshire as part of the ‘South Downs for All’ project. I’ve been giving the children an illustrated lesson all about the amazing wildlife that can be found in the South Downs National Park. The children have learned all about Adders, Glow-worms, orchids, Hares, moths and Adonis Blue butterflies and they have been amazed with my tales of the record-breaking Peregrine Falcon and the unbelievable life of the Swift.
For these sessions I have been reunited with Dusty, the stuffed Otter, who is on her last tour of duty before retiring to the Booth Museum. This has given the children a hands-on experience with one of the South Downs rarest resident species. The children have been great and their questions are so much more interesting than the ones I get from adults! “Do Hedgehogs eat Pizza?” “Am I allowed to pick up a Smooth Snake if I’m taking it to the hospital?” and “Is King Charles allowed to keep an Otter as a pet?”
For the Future
Having run the initial workshops, we are now working with our partner schools to arrange visits to our three partner museums: Butser Ancient Village, Weald and Downland Museum, and Gilbert White’s House. It is our good fortune not just to live so close to a wonderful landscape, but also to have three outstanding centres of downland interpretation on our doorstep. This project ensures that children from less affluent areas do not miss out on the opportunity to visit these places.
The South Downs National Park offers grants that help with cost of school transport and school visits. We are encouraging all our partner schools to apply for this funding, as this will allow us to extend what we can offer further to the grant we have already received from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
To find out more information about the project and to look at the work we have already done with Sussex schools in previous years, please look at our website, www.southdownsforall.org.uk
Chris Hare, South Downs for All Project Manager.
Michael Blencowe, Sussex Wildlife Expert
