Fishing 4 Schools comes to Northern Ireland in 2024

F4S, run by the Countryside Alliance Foundation’s Charlie Jardine, is a programme that uses angling as a teaching tool for secondary school pupils to explore core subjects like maths, English, and natural sciences while getting them involved in a new hobby.

Since its launch in 2007, over 3,800 children and young people from 140 schools across England and Wales have benefitted from learning outdoors and connecting with nature via Fishing for Schools. The programme assists students, including those with learning difficulties, by offering fishing-related activities as a way back into formal education and learning in the classroom, on field trips, or a combination of both.

F4S are looking forward to opening the application process for schools to apply to attend several events planned for 2024. For any schools wishing to express an early interest in the programme, please email [email protected].

Further application details will be provided in due course.

Countryside Alliance Ireland director Gary McCartney said: “I'm absolutely thrilled with the announcement. I hope Countryside Alliance Ireland, along with our partners UAF, can continue to build on F4S’s success in the UK by educating through fishing and offering young people opportunities through the many skills that angling has to offer.”

Ulster Angling Federation chairman Gary Houston said: “As we push forward angling development in Northern Ireland, it is a great opportunity to have Fishing For Schools operating in Northern Ireland and to be able to work in partnership with the Countryside Alliance Ireland. To grow angling, we have to start in schools by introducing kids to the sport - and this is a perfect programme to do so.”

Fishing for Schools director Charles Jardine said: “I am delighted to be able to bring Fishing for Schools to Northern Ireland, an area with renowned angling scope and fabulous fishers and structure.

“To have the Ulster Anglers help drive the initiative is a dream realised. All of us are determined to bring this project, which has helped thousands of young people in England and Wales in both angling and alternative education, into the angling world here. We are confident of a bright fishing future for the young people of NI.”