‘A good thing for children’: summer camps at risk in UK as costs rise

‘We need some sort of official recognition of what summer camps can do for children,’ said Chris Green, the coordinator of the Summer Camps Trust. Photograph: John Robertson/The Guardian

In a large country school in the rolling Shropshire hills, a group of young boys sporting hand-drawn moustaches are proudly selling wares at a pine-cone shop they created that morning.

Another group of children have taken a picnic and gone on an adventure into the woods, while others have gone to the swimming pool or to play ballgames on the front lawn.