Multi-Activity Camp for Ages 11-16 at Domaine de Chevillon

About an hour of riding a day, taught in groups matched to ability, with enjoyment rather than grading as the aim. The riding programme covers hacks along country lanes and the forest edge, carriage driving, horse care, vaulting, horse-ball, equifun and learning to lunge, and there is a bivouac with the ponies and horses. The school says the stay is open to beginners; a camper who wants to sit a galop grade is directed to its Stage Progression instead, which carries two hours of riding a day and the grading at the end. Around the riding, roughly four hours a day go to activities each camper chooses that morning. One leader for every eight or nine young people.

The school offers a special discount - ask us for details. The published price is a full-board package: the activities, accommodation with all meals, supervision by state-qualified riding instructors and qualified activity leaders, and insurance. Cancellation cover is sold separately as a percentage of the booking value. Travel to and from the estate is not part of the package.

Children sleep on the estate in single-storey buildings, with each age group in its own building and activity room; 11 to 13 year olds and 14 to 16 year olds are housed separately. Rooms have two to eight beds, girls and boys sleep in separate rooms, and children sharing a room are no more than two years apart in age. Leaders sleep in the same buildings in rooms set aside for them, and the buildings are locked at night. Meals are full board, prepared by a caterer with menus planned with a nutritionist, and pork-free, meat-free and vegetarian menus are available on request.

Full board. The published day plan runs breakfast in the morning, lunch at midday and dinner in the evening, all taken on the estate. Cooking, theme days and theme meals are among the activities campers can choose.

Each day the camper picks from a wide list of artistic, craft and sporting activities, and rides for about an hour. On the published day: big games, the swimming pool in season, beach volleyball and mountain biking in the morning; riding in the early afternoon; pool, olympiads and other activities afterwards. Elsewhere in the programme: a giant trampoline, cooking, theme days and theme meals, a trapper evening with a campfire and a bivouac with the ponies and horses, a cinema evening, a disco and la Fureur. There is a themed evening every night.

A family-run equestrian estate in Burgundy, in the Yonne near Auxerre, with its own pony club and riding arenas, carriages, a teaching farm, a heated outdoor swimming pool with a lifeguard on duty in season, a beach volleyball court, mountain bikes, a giant trampoline, table tennis, fishing water, and country lanes and forest edges for hacking and walking. Meals are taken in the estate's own dining rooms and there are indoor rooms for craft, theatre and evening activities.

The stay is built around choice: the camper decides each day what to do, which makes the group mix and re-mix rather than stay in one fixed class. Riding sits inside that rather than over it - an hour a day, in a level group, for the pleasure of it. Evenings are the other half of the holiday: a theme every night, a trapper evening round the fire, a night under canvas with the ponies and horses, a talent show and a disco.