Burghley house is currently working in collaboration with The Royal Forestry Society to bring you a new set of sessions in the historic grounds, all with trees at their heart.
The Royal Forestry Society is the largest and oldest educational charity dedicated to promoting the wise management of woods across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Their “Teaching Trees” programme works with primary schools and landowners, offering educational visits to local woodlands. All sessions can be adapted to any Primary age. They are run by the local RFS Teaching Trees Education officer.

Starter session (approx. 45 mins)
Tremendous Trees
Explore some of the fantastic trees in the Burghley landscape. Use identification keys and play games to learn to identify both local and exotic trees. Find out about the different parts of a tree. Learn what we use different types of wood for, why woodlands are so important as homes for many living things such as minibeasts and birds, and how trees help us.

Follow-on sessions (approx. 1hr 15 mins) – pick one to go with the Tremendous Trees session.
Maths in the Woods
Put your maths learning in a real-life context! The children will role play as woodland managers and make decisions based on maths that real life foresters and conservationists use. Can they work out how to make the woodland as good for wildlife as possible but also earn some money from selling timber at the same time? Depending on year group, areas of the curriculum covered can include: measuring length; perimeter and area; recording data; fractions, decimals & percentages; calculating the mean; using all four operations.

Enchanted Wood
Use your visit as inspiration for writing. The children will explore the environment with four senses then build phrases using rich vocabulary. Older children will create phrases using figurative language and experiment with how atmosphere can be built up in a story setting. Use either as a one-off addition to your classroom learning or take your ideas back to school as the setting for a longer piece of writing.