Educational tours of the Great War battlefields in France and Flanders.

 

Most schools and colleges discover Skylark by either direct recommendation or, after searching online, you finally discover a battlefield tour company that provides an individually created, well balanced and exciting itinerary that challenges pupils and draws them into a landscape once ravaged by war.

 

The most important aspect of travelling with Skylark Battlefield Tours is its individuality and operational flexibility.

Skylark Battlefield Tours will provide you with:

 

A fully guided tour with expert knowledge.

 

A comprehensive safety management plan/risk assessment for all aspects of the tour.

 

A pre-trip evening meeting for staff, parents and pupils.

 

All tour arrangements and bookings - a complete fully inclusive package. Everything is paid for, there are no hidden extras.

 

An exciting and thought provoking itinerary with each battlefield walk, museum or memorial adding to the historical and emotional understanding of the conflict.

 

A 60+ page booklet describing all the sites we visit with extracts from official war diaries, soldier’s letters, photographs, trench maps, explanations and illustrations. This is a personalised copy for your group, containing details to specific sites and walks relevant to your county or community location in the UK. It is not ‘death by worksheets’ - there are none!

 

A tour flexible enough to meet the pastoral and/or special needs of your group.

 

The participation in collective remembrance. Skylark freely offers a service for the locating of family war graves or memorials, as well as the ability to include events which affected your local community during the conflict.

 

The ability to create bespoke tours to other parts of the Western Front.

 

Good value, full board accommodation located in the centre of the battlefields. Sole occupancy for your group is always a priority. We are never more than 15 minutes travelling time from the battlefields.

 

Accommodation with a safe environment, plenty of amenities for the evening - for example: a pool table, video game machines, pin ball, table football, courtyard garden, quiet area, TV area, drink and snack vending machine and even a broadband computer suite are available in the preferred choice of accommodation in three locations

‘When the last gun has long withheld

Its thunder, and its mouth is sealed,

Strong men shall drive the furrow straight

On some remembered battlefield’.

After Days. Eric Chilman

Touring the Battlefields

 

Battlefield sites and walks are selected to both provoke questions, provide answers and most importantly, develop an understanding about the nature of the Great War on the Western Front. It is equally important not to lose the human story within this vast landscape, we will follow in the footsteps of many individuals who served and survived as well as many who fought and died.

 

We will visit the most active parts of the British line on the Western Front. To effectively explore both the Ypres Salient in Belgium and the Somme battlefields of 1916 requires 4 to 5 days.

 

Tours of 3 days or less should be dedicated to a particular area.

 

The 3 or 4 day poetry tour currently visits the Somme front line or the Ypres Salient in Belgium.

 

Skylark Tours are very much ‘in the field’ with the emphasis on interpreting real history.

 

Each tour begins with basic introductions to the battlefields and deliberately builds the historical and emotional content to prompt such comments as, ‘we spent a profoundly moving hour here, absorbing the atmosphere and taking in some of the enormity of the destruction of which this cemetery is a reminder’.

A surviving steel picket at Larch Wood near Hill 60 in

Belgium

Battlefield tour 1919 (above) and 80 years later (below)

Each day will be devoted to visiting a mixture of preserved battlefield sites, military cemeteries and memorials.

 

Museums and historical/preserved sites are chosen for their relevance, accurate interpretation and content - so don’t be surprised that some particularly well known sites and museums, often forming the backbone of many tour company itineraries, are simply left off the list!

 

It is very important not to lose the human and emotional content of a historical landscape, the battlefield walks follow the lives of real people serving there at the time, indeed many of the walks will be literally following an individual’s footsteps.

Essential Information First

 

Financial Security.

 

Skylark Battlefield Tours conforms to the 1992 Package Holiday

Regulations - This ensures you have complete financial security when booking your tour. All payments are maintained in a separate Trust Fund until the completion of the tour.

 

Insurance.

 

Skylark Battlefield Tours is correctly insured as a Tour Operator.

Public Liability extends to £10,000,000.

Safety Management Plan/Risk Assessment.

 

You will be provided with a Risk Assessment covering every aspect of the tour.

This document goes beyond the expected criteria included in DfES guidelines.

The current document is re-assessed every three months and has been adopted by many schools as their ‘model standard’ for other external trips. A copy will be sent to you upon enquiry.

 

Andrew Spooner has been conducting battlefield tours since 1985.

 

He is a member of the Guild of Battlefield Tour Guides - www.battlefieldguides.co.uk

 

Skylark Battlefield Tours began trading during 1997.

Plenty of Choice and Flexibility

 

There is no fixed duration for a tour or minimum group size, the tour price is structured individually to you - it’s your tour.

 

There is no fixed itinerary on these tours, each is built with particular reference to your location, historical interests and pastoral needs.

 

This ensures that together, we create a tour, which will remain a tangible and lasting memory for each member of your group.

 

Executive style coaches are provided for a group size of 20 to 70 persons or a minibus for up to 8 persons.

“Pupils were in the palm of his hand, they were treated to an excellent historical experience that improves significantly pupils knowledge, understanding and interest.

 

Excellent teaching and learning is raising standards”. (OFSTED 2002)

By using Skylark Battlefield Tours you are not choosing to travel with a large anonymous tour company, ever eager to cut corners to achieve that ‘special deal’ and often leaving you disappointed with their inflexibility, shallow itinerary, lack of knowledge and insight.

 

You are choosing to travel with a company skilled in providing a memorable and imaginative tour that remains a lifetime experience.