Pembrokeshire Beach School

Pembrokeshire Beach School is three unhurried hours on a wild Pembrokeshire beach with your kids, spent hunting crabs through the rock pools, lighting a fire and toasting marshmallows over it while a story (a different one every session) unfolds along the tideline. It’s hands-on, frequently messy and 100% screen-free. You don’t drop the children off and retreat to the car – grown-ups stay and join in, which they tend to enjoy at least as much as the children do, though they’re generally slower to admit it.

Every session is different

No two sessions are the same, partly because each has its own story and its own set of challenges and partly because the tide rearranges the beach twice a day. Families who come back will find something new waiting for them each time. To give you a flavour, here’s how one of them goes.

Example session: Tall Tide Tales

1. Setting off. We begin with a safety talk in the car park (a short one, we promise), then unroll the map of the Tall Tide Tales and head for the sand.
2. The treasure hunt. Boxes buried along the beach hold the day’s challenges and games and it’s the children who lead the search. Should one of them become devoted to a single crab for twenty minutes, we consider the session to be going exactly as intended.
3. Rock pooling. Crabs, shrimps, anemones and small fish all live in the pools, so we go visiting with magnifiers and ID cards to work out who’s who.
4. Tide talk. Why the sea comes and goes as it does, how to read what it’s up to and how to stay safe on the shore while it gets on with it.
5. Fire. Every child lights a small fire of their own, which then joins the big communal one.
6. Hot chocolate and fireside snacks arrive at about the point everyone feels they’ve earned them, along with marshmallows toasted in teams.
7. Whittling, fireside crafts and stories. The youngest get peelers and simple crafts, while children of 7 and over can graduate to knives with their grown-up alongside.
8. Sparks to finish. We end with a wire wool spin, which sends a shower of sparks out over the sand and is every bit as good as it sounds.

Where we meet

Our home beach is Manorbier, a short drive west of Tenby. We meet at the beach car park, what3words ///visitors.smallest.president. Tom will be there 30 minutes before the start. We do set off on time, though anyone running late can simply catch us up on the sand. Now and again the weather or the sea will make another beach the better choice, in which case we’ll text you 48 hours beforehand.

What to bring

A Pembrokeshire beach rewards the well-wrapped at most times of year, so please bring:

• Warm layers and a waterproof for everyone, grown-ups very much included
• Wellies, or old trainers that you don’t mind getting wet
• A change of clothes for each child
• A towel and a bag for the wet kit

Everything else comes with us: fire-lighting kit, tools, magnifiers, a shelter, hot chocolate and snacks.

Get Kids Outdoors

That, in three words, is the idea behind Beach School and behind a good deal of what Tenby Adventure does. We’ve spent years watching what happens when children are given a rock pool, a box of matches (supervised, we hasten to add) and enough time to become properly absorbed, which is that they turn out to be curious, capable and remarkably unbothered by drizzle. Very little of it can be done through a screen.

Beach School is our way of making that easy for families. You turn up in wellies and we take care of the fire, the kit and the hot chocolate. If your children go home muddy, tired and asking when they can come back, it has done its job.

Who leads

Tom is Tenby Adventure’s Head of Training and has been guiding on this coastline for 15 years. Pembrokeshire Beach School grew out of the beach stop he runs on our kayak trips. Away from the fire he is a wild seafood expert, incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to local history and legend. He also collects jokes…

As well as being highly qualified in a range of adventure activities, a certified Leave No Trace practitioner and DBS checked, Tom trains other people in outdoor first aid and is registered with the Education Workforce Council.

What families say

Read all our Google reviews

Safety, weather and food

• Every child takes part with their own grown-up alongside them. One adult can look after up to two children.
• Younger siblings are very welcome to come along, though they join in with the activities only when their grown-up is right beside them.
• Wind and drizzle don’t stop us; they’re part of the appeal, or so we maintain. If the Met Office issues an amber warning, or Tom judges the conditions unsafe, we’ll move you to another date or refund you in full.
• Hot chocolate, marshmallows and simple fireside snacks are all included. Please tell us about any allergies when you book. Allergen information for everything we serve is available on the day.

Ready for more?

Beach School has a way of producing small people with a taste for salt water. When that happens, sea kayaking is open to them from age 6 and coasteering from age 8, so there’s somewhere for all that enthusiasm to go. You can see the full range on our family adventures in Pembrokeshire page. Once you and your small human(s) have attended Beach School, you’ll get a 25% discount on our other activities.

Pembrokeshire Beach School FAQs