The school holidays arrive like a small tide. Lovely for the first day or two, then the question creeps in: what on earth are we going to do with them all week? If you are working, that question has a sharper edge. You need somewhere your child can go that is properly looked after, genuinely good for them, and not just another room with a screen in it.
Farm Explorers Holiday Club is our answer. Real days, on a real farm, for children aged 5 to 11. You drop them off in the morning and pick up a happy, muddy, slightly tired child at the end of the day. No home-education connection needed. No background required. Just a child who likes being outside and getting stuck in.
A real working farm, not a holiday scheme on a field
Tablehurst Farm in Forest Row is a biodynamic community farm with animals to feed, a garden that actually produces food, and woods to roam. That matters. Your child is not doing pretend farming on a patch of grass behind a leisure centre. They are part of the rhythm of a place that has work to do, in all weathers, the way a farm always has.
We are tucked near Ashdown Forest, easy to reach from East Grinstead, Crowborough, Tunbridge Wells and the surrounding villages, so it makes a strong day out as well as a holiday fix.
What a day actually looks like
Mornings often start with the animals. There are creatures that need feeding and checking, and children take that seriously once they understand a real animal is depending on them. From there a day might wander through any of these:
- Harvesting from the garden, then helping cook lunch over an open fire
- Building dens in the woods and disappearing into a long game of their own making
- Seasonal crafts and games that change with what the farm is doing that week
- Proper hands-on jobs, the kind that leave you grubby and pleased with yourself
It is unhurried and it is outdoors. Children move, get cold then warm again, solve small problems, fall in with new friends, and come home with stories instead of a flat battery. The screen-free part is not a gimmick. It is simply what happens when there is a fire to tend and a den to finish before pick-up.
Who it is for
Farm Explorers suits a few families especially well.
Working parents who need reliable, full days of childcare during the holidays and want those days to be worth something. This is care you can feel good about leaving for the morning.
Families wanting a screen-free break. Maybe term-time got a bit device-heavy and you would like the holidays to reset that. A few days on the farm does a lot of quiet good.
Local families after a brilliant day out. You do not have to commit to a whole summer. The club is a real experience in itself, and many children ask to come back.
You do not need to be a home-educating family to come. Our weekly sessions are largely home-ed, but the Holiday Club is open to everyone, including children at mainstream school whose holidays line up. If your child has never set foot on a farm, even better. That first morning is something to watch.
The practical bits
Farm Explorers runs during the school holidays for children aged 5 to 11, drop-off, so you can get on with your day. It is 40 pounds per day, and the club is booked as a whole block rather than picking individual days. Booking the whole club is deliberate: the children settle, the group bonds, and the week builds on itself in a way that single days never quite manage. Send them in clothes and footwear that are allowed to get filthy, plus layers, because a farm in any season asks for them.
If you want to know exactly which weeks are running and when, our calendar has the dates, and you are always welcome to get in touch with a question.
How to book
Spaces are limited by the simple fact that a farm can only hold so many small explorers at once, so the holidays that fill earliest are the ones parents plan ahead for.
If this sounds like the kind of holiday you would have loved as a child, book a place at Farm Explorers Holiday Club and let us give your family one less thing to worry about, and your child a week they will talk about for ages.