It was another busy day for children both in school at off site. The morning began with the children in Elm enjoying a hearty breakfast after sleeping overnight at Wat Tyler Country Park as part of their first residential trip with the school. After breakfast the children went outside where they played a series of team challenge games before showing off their shelter building skills to the rangers. the children were challenged to work as a team in order to create shelters which had to face all weather conditions. Little did they know that the staff were at hand with water jugs ready to throw at them and really put their shelters to the test!

After the shelter building the children faced the mud slide. the children were challenged to slide from the top of a wet tarpaulin which, although fine in itself, ended with them landing in a big sludgy pile of mud at the bottom! many of the children rose to the challenge and didn’t mind getting grubby in the slightest. After lunch and a visit to the shop it was time to go home. The team all returned to school boasting at what a delight the children were throughout the trip. Well done children, we are proud of you!

Meanwhile, back in school, there was plenty of activity on the field as we saw the beginning of our new tranquillity garden take shape. A team of gardeners were joined by representatives from the Green Team who oversaw the planting of some new cherry blossom trees, an acer and a hedgerow of red robin bushes. The area will develop over time and will include seating so that children have a quieter space to enjoy at lunchtime if they want to get away from the hustle and bustle of the playground. Thank you to the team at ‘Brown and Carroll’ who generously funded the project, we are very grateful.

Talking of hustle and bustle, there was plenty of it on show at lunchtime as the children made use of a variety of pallets in the loose parts zone of the playground. Having heard how to incorporate the pallets in their play in their OPAL assembly, the children stacked them in order to make ramps and mixed them with the tyres and scaffolding planks in a range of imaginative ways.

As the children from Year Five took to the stage in order to put the finishing touches to next weeks end of term production of ‘Oliver’ and the children in Aspen investigated Ramadan, the children in Kestrels enjoyed a fabulous Forest Friends session where they developed their reef knot skills and timber hitches before making log lean to shelters for some of their small toy creatures.