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School Residentials
Our school residentials offer an incredible opportunity for children and young people to experience a wide selection of adventurous activities. Every visit to us is unique and we tailor your course to achieve a programme that will perfectly fit your learning needs.
We have bursaries available and our programmes are designed to suit children and young people with additional needs.
Why do a residential?
School residentials offer a vast range of benefits for children, helping them grow socially, emotionally, and academically. Our residentials build teamwork, independence, and confidence while offering new experiences in a wild and beautiful environment. They also support health and well-being, develop leadership and life skills, strengthen relationships with teachers and reinforce learning.
How long do you come for?
Our residential programmes generally run between two and five days. Every day at Longtown offers fun and adventure as well as the opportunity for everyone to grow as a team, build confidence and develop resilience.
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When is a good time to come?
Residentials at Longtown take place all year round. Our cosy centre provides the perfect base whichever season you choose to come in and our waterproofs, wetsuits, wellies and cave suits ensure that you have all you need to enjoy our activities whatever the weather! If price is a consideration, it would be well worth thinking about a residential in spring, autumn or winter.
We offer a huge range of onsite and offsite activities. You can explore our activities here. Our offsite activities such as caving, gorge walking, canoeing, and rock climbing take a whole day. Our onsite activities can work as full days or half days so you could do one onsite activity in the morning and one in the afternoon. You will work with our Operations Manager to plan an activity programme that will support your desired learning outcomes.
Which activities to choose?
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Are there evening activities?
We have a great selection of evening activities that take place after dinner from 7pm to 8.30pm either on our site, at the ancient castle or on the nearby hills. They include orienteering, campfire, team challenges, castle quiz, den building and problem solving.
What about accommodation?
Our two accommodation blocks can be interconnecting or booked separately, meaning we are able to accommodate large school groups of up to 70 or two to three smaller groups. During the summer our base camp village can sleep a further 60 people. Click through the tabs below to find out more about each option.
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The Court House
The charming and historic Court House provides a warm and comfortable base and sleeps up to 40 people.
It has eleven rooms that are split over two floors and sleeps between one and eight people in each. There are wash basins in all the bedrooms and toilets on the central landing and the top floor. The shower facilities and drying rooms are in the separate shower block in the courtyard.
It has two communal lounge areas which lead out onto the centre lawns.
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What will you eat?
Breakfast and dinner are served in up to three different dining areas, depending on the group size and time of year. We have a buffet style breakfast of cereals, toast, fruit and baked beans. Cooked breakfasts are available on request for an additional cost. Children prepare their own packed lunches which include a choice of sandwiches, crisps, fruit and snacks.
In the evening we offer a traditional, home-cooked two-course meal - you can find a sample menu here. Special diets and food allergies and intolerances can all be catered for with advance notice.
What will your day look like?
The sample programme below gives an idea of what a 5-day residential could look like.
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What do you need to bring?
Click on the buttons below to download our bedroom kit list and our camping kit list. Lots of changes of clothes are useful and you can never have too many pairs of socks! We can supply you with waterproofs and wellies so you don't need to go and buy these specially for your trip. We also supply all specialist equipment for each activity.
"Both my son and my daughter returned from Longtown absolutely raving about their trip. Fantastic staff and activities despite sub zero temperatures on both occasions! Hiking, caving, gorge-walking, canoeing and plenty more. Really helped build their confidence creating memories to last a lifetime"
Parent, November 2024
Financial Support
As a charity it is our mission to make school residentials affordable for all. The Wilson Foundation offers bursaries to children who live in Northamptonshire and the Longtown Outdoor Learning Trust offers bursaries to children who live outside of Northamptonshire. All children who receive free school meals get an automatic bursary that gives them a 30% reduction in the cost of the course. We also have have a discretionary bursary for families that the school has identified as experiencing financial difficulties.
All bursaries are applied for by the school. For the children that receive free school meals we just need the school to send us the list of children’s names. For children the school would like to put forward for the discretionary bursary fund, please download the application form below and return it to us. Once this has been reviewed we will inform the school of the application outcome.