End of Term Newsletter Summer Term 2022: Trips

Year 4 Dorchester Abbey and Dorchester Village Trail

Mrs Phillips, Mrs Quinn, Miss Harrison and Miss Pullinger took Year 4 to Dorchester last week. The trip included 4 activities:

• Abbey & Grounds Pilgrimage with the Education Officer
• Museum Visit and artefact handling with a Local Historian
• Hunt the Treasures and Discover Parts of a Church with a knowledgeable guide
• Finally, a craft session which involved the careful creation of a pilgrim’s badge – these looked amazing! Plus, a little brass rubbing.

All the activities were interesting and interactive. The tour engaged the children as it moved round the inside and outside of the Abbey and the children loved dressing up. The Museum visit was engaging with historical artefacts to handle, including a quick visit to the museum shop. The ‘Hunt the Treasures’ and ‘Discover Parts of a Church’ was a good chance for the children to move round the Abbey, searching out treasures and understanding the layout.

Ellie, the Education Officer, drew plenty of excellent questions out of our Year 4 children at the beginning and her plenary brought everything together with all questions answered.

The rain held off when we most needed it to and we could eat our picnic lunch in the Abbey Tearoom garden.

The craft session was a new feature, as was the Village Trail, which took in geographical features too. Dorchester has a rich history taking in the Bronze Age and Iron Age, the Wittenham Clumps and Dyke Hills, a Roman town, St. Birinus and King Cynegils – a small village with a fascinating history and a huge church. And a group of very interested and well-behaved children.

An excellent day! Mrs Phillips

Year 6 Bushcraft Adventure

In June, Year 6 pupils travelled to Blenheim Palace Woods to take part in a Bushcraft adventure.

Pupils tried six different ways of making fire before making their own fire to cook their lunch. This was followed by enjoying some mud packs and silly games. In the evening, children practiced shelter building before dinner. The evening activity was carving a peg before making smores over the camp fire.

The following day, pupils turned their hand to making traps followed by helping Freddie to celebrate his birthday – unfortunately the wind blew out the marshmallow candle!

Year 1 Harcourt Arboretum Trip

Did you know that peacocks fly up into trees to sleep at night? This was just one of the interesting facts that Year 1 found out at Harcourt Arboretum.

We were greeted by Tegan who explained a little about the arboretum. We learned that there are trees from all over the world there and even at the beginning of our visit, we could see all sorts of interesting trees; tall ones, spiky ones and ones with beautiful golden, red and yellow colours. We were fascinated by the peacocks who seemed to follow us around for the whole trip.

Our trip was split into two parts, a woodland walk with Tegan and some fun activities around the arboretum. On the woodland walk, the children were given a challenge: to explore the features of each tree that we were introduced to and decide whether each one would be suitable for the peacocks. Some were too spiky, a few had branches that would be too weak and others were deciduous, so would be no good for a winter shelter. We stopped by the Californian Redwood trees and held hands around it to see how wide it was. Eventually we found a tree which was just right for the peacocks. I wonder if a Year 1 child could tell you its name or what it looked like?

We were given a special bag with a variety of activities to try out in the grounds of the arboretum. We had lots of fun with these and they taught us a bit about the life of a peacock. The first activity asked us to pretend we were peahens and the children collected materials to make a nest. There was some excellent collaboration and some very cosy looking nests at the end.

The leaves in the arboretum were all beautiful shades of colours ranging from bright green to rich red and warm gold. The children used these colourful leaves and other woodland treasures to make leaf crowns. Everyone looked very smart and colourful and there was even an opportunity to use our knowledge of symmetry when making patterns of seeds and petals.

Our visit was fun and busy and we all enjoyed ourselves very much. The weather was glorious and we were grateful for the shade of the many trees. There was so much to see and to do that we felt tired and hungry by the end. We were glad to be met back at school by a yummy picnic! Special thanks to Mrs Hollins and Mrs Tomlinson who accompanied us and helped to make this trip so special.

Mrs Maher and Miss Wheat

EAL Trip to Blenheim Palace

Mrs Cater and Miss Mountain had a fabulous sunny day out at Blenheim Palace with a delightful group of children who study English as an Additional Language (EAL). The children had a guided tour of the palace and learned about some British history including the discovery of Winston Churchill’s birthplace and links with Prince William (our future King!). They continued the rest of their day exploring the expansive grounds which included solving the palace maze, visiting the butterfly house and even squeezed in a game of rounders (using a water bottle as a bat – great initiative!) The children rounded the day off with a well-deserved ice cream to cool down!