IN FOCUS 2021
Outdoor Learning By Mr Smith and Mr Davies
It has been a busy year for all things Outdoor Learning related; pupils across Prep have been making use of our many wonderful outdoor areas to enrich their learning, get their hands dirty and even have a go at growing veg! One of the children’s favourite places to visit in School must be Forest School. The pupils from Pre-Prep up to Year 3 have all enjoyed making numerous visits to our Forest School this year and their excitement and enthusiasm for this time spent outside is palpable. The pupils love having the space to explore the outdoors safely and with few limits – digging in the ground, climbing trees, ducking under branches and climbing over things. It provides much needed time in the fresh away from screens and allows the pupils to play and explore imaginatively, develop practical skills such as problem solving and team work.
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During Michaelmas Term, the School’s dedicated Estates Team got busy creating a new allotment area, funded generously by the Parents’ Association. Our excitement that this new area to plant fruit and vegetables in would be ready for Spring planting was only marginally marred by the news of another national lockdown meaning pupils would not be on site to see and use it for some time. In true Birkenhead spirit we carried on, choosing instead to send all Little School pupils at home a variety of seeds they could begin growing before bringing back in with them when lockdown ended. Upon return to school in March the children across Prep enjoyed getting stuck in to planting in the allotment. Infant children had great pride planting their seedlings out and pupils in other year groups enjoyed sowing herb seeds, vegetable seeds and even planting potatoes. Of course, the best part of all the hard work was getting to pick the fruits of their labour – quite literally. The children have been able to cut sweet pea flowers to brighten up the Prep Office and pick pea pods straight from the plant and have a taste. The children have been mesmerised to see the
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