As part of our 50 voices series, we chatted to Matt Britt, Chief Education Officer at Authentic Education Trust, about his long connection with Lower Treginnis. He told us why, more than 30 years after his first visit, he still believes in its power to change children’s lives.
Matt first came to our Pembrokeshire farm in January 1992 as a newly qualified teacher and has returned ever since with children from schools serving communities facing inequalities and complex challenges.
A first visit to Lower Treginnis that never really ended
Matt remembers his first trip clearly. He was teaching in Peckham when a colleague suggested taking a group to the newly opened farm at Lower Treginnis.
“We just had an amazing time,” he says.
That could have been the end of the story, one memorable residential early in a teaching career. Instead, it became the start of something much longer. Across the years that followed, Matt kept bringing children back. Different schools, different roles, different responsibilities, but always that same connection to Lower Treginnis.
“It’s just been a constant.”
That sense of continuity runs through everything he says. Staff have changed, education has changed and the pressures on schools have changed too, but the value of the experience has remained.
“The farm is the connection.”
Why farm residentials leave a lasting impression on children
For Matt, the impact of Lower Treginnis has never been limited to the week itself. What matters most is what children carry away with them afterwards.
Over the years, former pupils have come back to tell him how much their time at the farm meant. One former pupil told him it changed her life and helped spark a passion for outdoor learning that later shaped her career. Another, reflecting on a very difficult childhood, told him that nobody could take that experience away from her. Those are the stories that stay with him, because they show that the impact of a week on the farm is not always instant or easy to measure, but it can be deep and long lasting.
“I think it gives hope,” Matt says.
That feels like the thread running through his whole story. Lower Treginnis gives children a glimpse of something wider. A different routine, a different environment, a different version of themselves. For some children, that becomes a memory. For others, it becomes something they hold onto when life is difficult.
Real responsibility helps children grow in confidence
One of the things Matt values most about Lower Treginnis is the real sense of responsibility children are given there.
There is work to do. Animals need feeding. Jobs need finishing. Everyone has a role to play. Children are not standing on the sidelines watching farm life happen around them. They are part of it.
“There’s nothing else where there’s that sense of responsibility,” he says.
He talks about the rhythm of the farm with a mixture of humour and admiration. The early mornings, the tiredness, the reality that the animals still need caring for whether you fancy getting up or not.
“Sorry, it’s six in the morning and we’re getting up, but those goats have to be milked and fed and that’s your job.”
There is something in that experience, Matt feels, that children do not often get elsewhere. They discover they are capable, realise they can contribute and learn that they matter to the smooth running of the day.
He has seen the difference that makes when children return home. Parents have told him their children come back more independent, more helpful and more respectful. They make their beds. They get involved. They carry themselves differently because they have had the experience of being trusted and needed.
Lower Treginnis opens up a wider world
Matt is also clear that the impact of Lower Treginnis is about much more than the practical farm work. It is about place.
Set on the Pembrokeshire coast, the farm gives children wide skies, sea air, darkness at night, open land and a powerful sense of being somewhere very different from home. Matt speaks warmly about that landscape and the effect it can have.
“There’s something powerful about farming surrounded by the sea on three sides of you,” he says. “You literally can’t feel more in touch with nature.”
That connection with the natural world is not something Matt takes for granted. He remembers visiting with a secondary school from Weymouth and speaking to a girl who told him she had lived there for years and had never actually been to the sea. That moment stayed with him because it challenged assumptions about access. Even when nature is nearby, it is not always truly available to young people and their families.
At Lower Treginnis, children do not just hear about the outdoors. They live in it for the week. They feel it, smell it, work in it and experience what it means to be fully present in a place.
Lower Treginnis can change how children see themselves
Some of Matt’s strongest memories are of children who arrived at the farm with adults feeling unsure about how they would cope, only to thrive once they were there.
He remembers one boy in particular, a child others had worried about bringing, who ended up confidently explaining horse care to Princess Anne during a coincidental royal visit. It is a funny story, but the reason Matt tells it is because of what it reveals. A child who might often have been seen through the lens of behaviour or difficulty suddenly became the expert. He had knowledge, confidence, he had something important to say and a very kind, captive audience.
For Matt, Lower Treginnis creates opportunities for children to be seen differently and to see themselves differently too. Away from the labels they may carry in school or at home, they can step into responsibility, competence and pride. And once a child has had that feeling, it can stay with them.
The impact of Lower Treginnis reaches beyond the children
Matt also speaks powerfully about the way Lower Treginnis affects whole school communities.
Classes come back more united. Staff return seeing children in a new light. Families notice changes at home. A week away on the farm can shift relationships, strengthen trust and give pupils who sometimes struggle in the classroom an opportunity to open up.
For Matt himself, the farm has become part of his own life story too. He speaks about the sense of calm and perspective he has found there at difficult times in his life and the way the place itself has remained a constant even as people and circumstances have changed.
That personal connection is part of what gives his reflections such weight. He is not speaking as someone who visited once and admired the idea. He is speaking as someone who has seen, over and over again, what Lower Treginnis can do.
Why Lower Treginnis matters more than ever
After more than 30 years of bringing children to Lower Treginnis, Matt believes the need for places like it is only growing.
In a world where children are spending more time indoors on screens or gadgets and often having fewer opportunities for hands on outdoor learning, he sees the farm as offering something rare and essential.
He goes on to say that it gives children practical responsibility, connection with nature, a clearer understanding of where food comes from and the chance to grow in confidence through doing.
Not every child will leave the farm and go on to work with animals or in education. But that is not really the point. What matters is that they leave with something real. A memory. A sense of achievement. A little more confidence. A slightly wider horizon.
For some children, that may last a term or two. For others, it lasts a lifetime.
Visit a farm, feel the impact
Matt’s story is a powerful reminder of what a week on the farm can make possible. At all of our farms, young people get the chance to care for animals, explore in nature, discover where food comes from and build confidence through real hands-on experience. Find out more about the benefits of visiting Farms for City Children and how your school or group can book a visit.
