The Week in Prep

Reception

Reception had an amazing morning at Forest School last week. They were very excited to try pond dipping for the first time and were fascinated by the creatures they found. They had to carefully dip the long, heavy net into the pond and swish it about to gather some water and creatures. Next, they scooped the tiny minibeasts into a smaller tub before using an identification chart to try to work out what they had caught. We caught lots of dragonfly nymphs and even saw some fully formed dragonflies when they sat on the arms of two girls! What a magical experience!

Year 2

If music be the food of love play on.’ So someone rather famous once said.  Well, in Year 2 we did play on and we did LOVE IT!!

We listened to a range of music and discussed which emotions it caused us to feel – can you tell by the photographs what music we were listening to? Sad? Happy? Scared? Peaceful?

The girls were then challenged with composing their own music on a computer programme called 2Sequence. There were a selection of different musical instruments, as well as sounds and even an option to create your own sound. The girls learned how to change the tone, melody and timbre to change the mood of the music.  Discovering a range of sounds and using them to create music proved to be a thrilling and fun-filled lesson. The results were fabulous and all of the girls created their very own masterpieces that they felt rather proud of. So yes, music and of course computing lessons are definitely the food of love for us!

Year 4

Year 4 were practising cookery skills in D.T. where they had to grate, peel, slice and chop vegetables.  This was all in preparation for making a fruit salad of their own in this week’s lesson.

Year 6

Wick Court was amazing! Everyone loved it and agreed that it was our favourite residential yet.

The journey was really exciting. On the way, we saw so many animals that prepared us for our week on the farm. We saw cows, horses, sheep and even a chicken farm. Everyone was really excited for the week ahead and couldn’t wait to get there.

Wick Court is a farmhouse that dates back to the Elizabethan times and Queen Elizabeth is said to have stayed there! There were four dorms each holding 8-10 people. They were called: Queenies, Solar, Tom Putt and Severn Bank. Although we weren’t in there much, we enjoyed our time there and loved having one big week-long sleepover with our friends. We had to wake up at 7:00am for a farm job before breakfast. By the evening, everyone was extremely tired, so we welcomed our bedtime (after a hot chocolate or night time snack!)

During the week, we enjoyed so many activities. Some of our favourites were: lamb training, mucking out and grooming the horses, bee keeping, gardening and pig weighing. Lots of people loved holding the chicks too. Before every activity, we had to dress in dark blue overalls or waterproofs and wear wellies. We got changed and left our farm clothes in the boot room to keep germs away and prevent illness. After dinner, we would have another activity to do, such as putting the pigs to sleep, feeding the cows in the dairy farm and rounding the ducks. All of us loved the roaming duck, Elvis. At the end of the day and after so much fresh air, everyone was so tired and went to sleep easily.

The food in Wick Court was amazing! We even got to cook some of the lunch, dinner and puddings as an activity. We loved the Wick Court special breakfast and the pasties, which we enjoyed around the camp fire. One group chopped vegetables and made chocolate apples. Other groups made pasties, soup, bread and apple crumble which was all delicious. Lots of the food was sourced from the farm, such as vegetables from the garden.

At the end of such a brilliant week, we were all excited to see our parents (and pets) and tell them what we had been up to. But were sad to leave Wick Court and we will miss the animals. It was a great experience to see what life is like working and living on a farm and we would love to go back.

By Georgie L and Charlotte R (6S)