Guardian investigation reveals vast gap in outdoor space and lists the top 10 schools with the most of all

• Revealed: private schools have 10 times more green space than state schools
• Analysis: Green space better for young brains than we realised
• How England’s top private schools came to own 38,000 acres of land

A handful of schools, the Guardian’s analysis has found, have campuses that stretch over hundreds of acres. So what, exactly, do the 10 largest schools (by area) offer their lucky students?, and how do they go about sharing their grounds with other children?

Guardian investigation finds pupils at England’s wealthiest schools have much greater access to land, with implications for mental health

• Analysis: Green space better for young brains than we realised
• How England’s top private schools came to own 38,000 acres of land
• Beagling, golf and jolly hockey sticks: outdoor life at England’s largest private schools

Children at the top 250 English private schools have more than 10 times as much outdoor space as those who go to state schools, an exclusive Guardian analysis can reveal.

A schoolboy at fee-charging Eton has access to 140 times more green space than the average English state school pupil, the analysis found. Experts condemned the “staggering” and “gross” inequalities.

The average student at one of England’s top private schools has access to approximately 322 sq metres of green space, whereas the average state school student has access to about 32 sq metres of green space: a ratio of 10:1.

Eton students enjoy the largest area of land of all the schools in the country, with its schoolboys having access to 4,445 sq metres per pupil an area, 140 times larger than that available to the average state school student. Some of that land is also accessible to the public.

The private school campuses include tennis courts, golf courses, rowing lakes, swimming pools, equestrian centres, wilderness areas, and remote camping lodges.

In contrast, some state schools have little or no green space at all for their students.

Campaigners say next government must reduce use and toxicity of pesticides before it is too late

The UK’s insect populations are declining at alarming rates and the next government must put in place plans to monitor and reduce the use and toxicity of pesticides before it is too late, wildlife experts say.

In recent years, concerns have been raised over earthworm populations, which have fallen by a third in the past 25 years. A citizen science project that monitors flying insects in the UK, meanwhile, found a 60% decline between 2004 and 2021. The overall trajectory, as government monitoring figures show, has been downwards since the 1970s.

Party has vowed to end sewage scandal if it wins power, but experts say it will have to act quickly and ambitiously

Since the UK’s general election was called, the Labour party has been seeking to capitalise on voters’ fury over the sewage filling England’s rivers and seas.

The debt-ridden, leaking, polluting water industry, owned largely by foreign investment firms, private equity and pension funds, has overseen decades of underinvestment and the large-scale dumping of raw sewage into rivers. It has become one of the touchstone issues of this election, with voters across the political spectrum angry at the polluting of waterways treasured by local communities. Groups have sprung up to look after rivers and lakes; protests pop up most weekends along the coast.

We look back through 14 years of Conservative manifestos at policies on net zero, energy, transport and more

It’s been a long journey on environmental issues for the Tories – but somehow it feels as if it has been in the wrong direction. Eighteen years on from David Cameron’s “hug a husky” campaign of 2006, where the climate and nature crises were largely viewed with cross-party consensus, we look back through the (many) Tory manifestos since 2010 to see how the Conservatives’ environmental message has evolved.