Bourne Abbey Church of England Primary Academy

Striving For Excellence, Caring For All In a Loving And Caring Christian Environment.

Reception and Year 3 visit Great Wood Farm

Author: Jill Bates

Reception’s Visit:

As part of their learning about growth, change and life cycles, Reception children at Bourne Abbey C of E Primary Academy were excited to visit Great Wood Farm and Early Years Centre for their first school trip! After exploring stories about farms, farm animals and different farm equipment, the three classes were eager to travel to a real-life farm and get some ‘hands on’ experience. As part of the trip, children had the opportunity to grind wheat to make flour, mix their own bread dough and cook it on an open camp fire. Then, following a tractor and trailer ride through the farm, children were able to enjoy a lambing session where they were lucky to see not 1, not 2 but 6 lambs born over the two days of the trip! Many children shared that their highlight was ‘feeding and stroking the baby lambs’ who were ‘soft’, ‘fluffy’ and ‘so cute!’.

Reception will now continue their learning on animal life cycles as they carefully care for some eggs- which will hatch into chicks- from their classrooms. Eleanor Thompson, EYFS Leader, said “hands-on, interactive experiences are fantastic for supporting young children’s learning. It was lovely to see all of the awe and wonder stimulated from this trip and to hear the children talk so enthusiastically about their experiences.”

Year 3’s visit:

Children from schools across Bourne Abbey recently had an incredible opportunity to travel back in time to the Stone Age when they visited the fabulous venue of Great Wood Farm. With brains already bulging with their historical learning about the Stone Age, they were incredibly enthusiastic about spending a day exploring the skills needed for survival out in the wild!

Readily equipped with wellies and coats, they enjoyed a fantastic day marching across lamb filled fields and into the woodlands to their various different base camps. As the day progressed, teachers were increasingly impressed with the team work and problem solving that they could see as the children developed their foraging and den building skills, even creating their own wattle and daub to build the walls! Map skills were practised after lunch as our intrepid nomads moved to their next base finding key features along the way, such as conifers and standing water before marking them onto their maps whilst using compass points to check their directions.

Further adventures enabled them to hone their survival skills as they were challenged to grind wheat into flour, whittle sticks, make dough and cook it over the fire! Responses to the taste of the bread were varied but we everyone showed courage and resilience to have a go. More opportunities for den building, stone age cave art and mud kitchen play produced a wealth of fabulous responses from the children such as “This is the best day ever, I would have loved living in the Stone Age!’ and ‘No wonder progress was so slow during the Paleothic if it takes this long just to build a house!’. What a wonderful day, breathing life into their classroom learning about British history, fun filled, fact filled and exhilarating. Well done to all of our Year 3 children from both schools as they showed off their Wow factor, motivation and enthusiasm all day!