Potential school visit

Thank you for your interest in visiting The Bug Parc with your school group.

Our Parc is a unique all-invertebrate tropical zoo set in a five-acre purpose-built facility with free parking for cars and coaches.

Over 200 tropical insect displays are housed in three large visitor houses named after well-known entomologists of the past. Kirby House, Comstock House, and Hinton House.

Most school visits are from 10am to 2pm and our itineraries are based on those hours, though we can open earlier if required and schools can stay later than 2pm if it preferred. (itineraries can be changed to accommodate any length of visit).

We close at 4pm winter hours, at 5pm summer hours.

School visits are broken down into smaller groups of 15 to 25 children, dependent on the number of children visiting on the day, and we provide a colour-coded itinerary for each group for the day to make your visit run like clockwork.

Itinerary Example

Here is an example of an itinerary that would suit the number of children proposed for a visit for two groups. The itineraries are based on an experience of past visits but can be changed to accommodate the specific needs of a school.

Times	Group 1	Group 2
09:50 or before	Arrival	Arrival
10:00	Kirby House Talk	Comstock House free visit
10:30	Comstock House free visit	Kirby House Talk
11:00	Bug handling experience	Hinton House free visit
11:30	Bug handling experience	Outside play (if good weather)
12:00	Lunch	Comstock House Ant Talk and Q&A
12:30	Comstock House Ant Talk and Q&A	Lunch
13:00	Outside play (if good weather)	Bug handling experience
13:30	Hinton House free visit	Bug handling experience
14:10 or after	Departure	Departure

Times	Group 1
09:50 or before	Arrival
10:00	Kirby House Talk
10:30	Comstock House free visit
11:00	Bug handling experience
11:30	Bug handling experience
12:00	Lunch
12:30	Comstock House Ant Talk and Q&A
13:00	Outside play (if good weather)
13:30	Hinton House free visit
14:10 or after	Departure

Times	Group 2
09:50 or before	Arrival
10:00	Comstock House free visit
10:30	Kirby House Talk
11:00	Hinton House free visit
11:30	Outside play (if good weather)
12:00	Comstock House Ant Talk and Q&A
12:30	Lunch
13:00	Bug handling experience
13:30	Bug handling experience
14:10 or after	Departure

Group 1 Group 2

Our tropical houses in detail

Handling insects

Each group will have a timed handling session lasting approximately 45 minutes to enable each child (if they wish to) to handle four or five safe-to-handle invertebrates, whilst the keepers explain a little about each species, and they will also answer questions from the group. The group will then be shown a tarantula and/or scorpion up close but these animals will not be handled.

Lunch

We split the lunch breaks into half-hour slots so that each group can take their packed lunches into our on-site Café without causing too much congestion in the Café. We expect children to be controlled and well-behaved in the Café which is open to the public. On nicer days, there are plenty of outside picnic benches where children can have their packed lunches en plein air. We can supply lunch/sandwiches by prior request.

Talks

We can give several talks in different houses by request whilst visiting other houses.

We include a detailed talk about our leaf-cutting ant colony, talking about social insects, their life, habitat, and daily life.
We demonstrate how a stick insect flies, with a live stick insect.
We demonstrate how a stick insect uses its wings as a defence measure displaying eyespots.
We demonstrate how a beetle feigns death to avoid predation.
Full Q&A session available at the end of the talk.

Outside Play

Should the weather be suitable, there are a range of fun activities outside that are available to each group in allocated time slots in the itinerary.

Pedal cars on a contained track
Undercover sand pit
Jumping pillow (limit 28 persons on the pillow at a time)
Outside play area with swings, a slide, and a climbing frame
Large grassed area to run around and with picnic tables for outside lunches

Wall information boards

The wall boards in each room are very comprehensive and can be used as an aid to discuss most topics in the school curriculum that relate to invertebrates.

Other information

We are predominantly an undercover attraction, so visits will not be spoiled by bad weather, though the outside play activities would then be limited.

You are welcome to have a school representative visit the Parc as our guest to assess the Parc and plan the school visit day in advance.

Pricing

Price per child£8.00 (inc VAT)
Registered carersFree

One free teacher for each group, or part group of 10 children. Extra teachers/helpers are charged at £8.00pp (inc VAT). We will send the invoice to the school after the visit.

Booking

Should you wish to book a visit please contact Martin French, Director, by email at martin@thebugparc.com. Please confirm a date or dates that you would prefer for your visit and advise how many children you would wish to bring to the Parc. We will then check that the date(s) is/are available and advise accordingly.

Additional Information

Once we have confirmed the booking we will provide you with a full risk assessment for the site, insurance information, a full itinerary for the number of groups attending and a site plan.

We look forward to your visit. Should you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us by email at martin@thebugparc.com

School trips and educational visits