Arundel C of E Primary School

Forest School report and a visit from The Dogs Trust

Forest School Fun a report written by Eloise, Lyza and Keziah in Year 2

We were fortunate to have visitors to support our quest to further enhance our Forest School status as a school. Mary, Cecily, Sue and Kate spent the afternoon with Butterfly Class and told us all about Oak trees.

We had to go into the woods, through squelchy, sticky, muddy puddles to find an enormous oak tree that was over 500 years old. We had to find a seed of an Oak tree, this is called an acorn. We then dug up some soil from the woodland floor and put it in a wheelbarrow. It was good fun but very dirty and mucky.

We walked back to school through a very big puddle and planted our acorn in a bottle with rolled up newspaper and three spoonful's of soil that we had dug up.

Over the next couple of months, we are going to make sure that our acorn is happy, well-watered and we are going to keep an eye out to see what happens to it. We think it will start to grow.

The Dogs Trust come to ACE

Since 2003, the Dogs Trust Education Team have been delivering educational programmes to young people across the UK, and we had them visit ACE. Below are examples of when dogs enjoy being given time alone to be shared with ACE pupils:

• Dogs need their own space to sleep, rest, or relax. Dogs may choose to sleep in a place other than their bed, but it’s important for them to enjoy that time undisturbed.

• Whatever resource a dog is enjoying, dinner, treats or toys - it’s best they are left alone. A dog may feel unsafe/uncomfortable if they think an important resource may be taken away.

• We should give dogs the freedom to move away from a person or situation, without being followed, to ensure they feel safe and comfortable and helps build a loving, trusting bond.

We hope this session helped our children learn more about how they should behave around dogs. www.arundelchurchofenglandschool.org.uk