Sonder Bikes
How Foundation grants have covered the transport costs standing between two schools and the National Park or moorland on their doorstep.
Living next to a National Park doesn't guarantee you ever set foot in it. For some schools, the wild land at the end of the road stays exactly that: something seen from a distance, not somewhere pupils actually go. Two small grants show how little it can take to close that gap. Not equipment, not training. Just the cost of the coach.
A school on the edge of the Lake District
Millom School sits on the edge of the Lake District National Park, yet very few of its students used to visit it for recreation or conservation. The school set out to change that with a whole-school conservation project in Eskdale, sending a different year group out each day to clear litter, manage vegetation, repair paths, walls and fences, and plant trees, working alongside Friends of the Lake District. Matthew, from the school, explained the thinking behind involving all 500 students: it would let them see the impact young people can have on the environment, while training older pupils as conservation leaders for the school and wider community. The Foundation's contribution went entirely on transport to get everyone to and from the site.
That relationship continued. Forestry England later donated hundreds of hazel saplings for the school to plant at Hardknott Forest, one of the largest conifer plantations in the Lake District, as part of an ongoing effort to restore it to native woodland linking the site to the existing Duddon Valley woodlands. Project officer John Hodgson supervised the planting and put the scale of the ambition simply: "We're slowly restoring the area to its native woodland." Once again, the grant covered the transport, nothing more.
Learning what the moor is for
Slaithwaite Junior and Infant School in West Yorkshire faced a version of the same problem with the Peak District's moorland on its doorstep. Increased tourism was bringing more erosion and more accidental fires, often caused by little more than a badly placed barbecue, and the school wanted its pupils to understand why that mattered before they became the visitors causing it. A trip to Marsden Moor, arranged with Moors for the Future, gave pupils a chance to meet the organisation's youth engagement officer and learn about moorland habitats first-hand. Paula Cherrington, from the school, set out what she hoped pupils would take from it:
"It will help our pupils have an understanding of this special habitat: the species that live here and also how it benefits them in their day-to-day lives. It will also help to educate them about fire risk on moorlands and responsible behaviour from those visiting the area can reduce the occurrence of fires."
The Foundation's grant, again, was simply the means to get there and back.
None of these projects needed new kit or new skills. They needed a coach. If your school is separated from the landscape on its doorstep by nothing more than a transport bill, find out how to apply.