Here at Secret Valley we like to combine learning with fun.
We cater for many school tours and have lots of activities running throughout the day to keep everyone occupied whether it be the middle of October or July!
Our school tour programme has 10 nature/animal based activities to choose from, from bottle feeding kid goats to pondlife, scavengerhunt and mini beasts. They are all suitable for different age ranges. We also have a big outdoor play area that the kids love to burn off that extra energy in! We can cater for school tours aswell with a varied menu from our coffee shop. even if its raining we get outside and enjoy the farm – so if your comming with your school make sure and have clothes /footwear for all weather conditions!
As we have now moved into a new purpose built animal shed there is more room for picnicing inside and activities inside and soon we hope to have an indoor play area too.
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Below is a a letter we received from a teacher after a school tour -
To Anne and Team at Secret Valley Farm,
I am just dropping you a mail to say how much our Junior and Senior infant classes enjoyed our school tour to your farm last week ( May 2009) I have to add straight away that us teachers enjoyed it just as much!
Usually the highlight of school tours for kids this age is the bus trip, but this time the response the following week was fantastic and it related to the farm this time!
From the word go when we arrived at your farm I was happy to be met by yourself at the door of the bus, kindly welcomed and instructed on where to go and what to do. I have experienced tours in the past where I had to look for someone to be given these directions.
From a teachers point of view on the day I felt very at ease and was not worried about the childrens safety around the place. I really liked the fact that we walked to the farm from the car/bus park, as we did not have to worry about cars comming or going around the Farm area.
They were all so occupied and interested in the activity the were engaged in. The Mini – beast hunt was my highlight, the more slimy the minibeast the more the kids loved it too. The fact that you had staff there to take groups around different areas for the hunt was brilliant. The follow up to the hunt with pictures, and interesting facts about what they had found was super and kept short and sweet as young childrens attention is short lived!
The tour was very hands on feeding the animlas in the barn was a special treat for some as even though we are a country school they did not have any experience of this. Walking into the playground for the kids was like walking through the gates at Disney World! They were so excited, and had so much fun.With so much space to run around freely and safely.
In conclusion to this (longer than I had anticipated) messgae I just want to say thank you so much for such a well organised and enjoyable tour I will be intouch early in 2010 to rebook!
kind regards
Eimear Lyng
Junior Infant Teacher
Scoil Naomh Aine Rathgarogue, NewRoss Co Wexford