Memorable Experience and Theme Days

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Each topic begins with a memorable experience, this may be a morning, afternoon or full day of lessons/activities linked to the new topic of the half term. This allows children to be fully immersed in their topic from the offset, building on their curiosity, taking on roles such as archaeologists, historians, explorers etc. and ‘living’ the topic.

Throughout the school year, we have themed weeks or days that further enhance our children’s learning. This includes ‘Science Week’, World Book Day, International Women’s Day, World Ocean’s Day amongst others. These days allow our children to focus on developing specific skills; they allow them to consider the importance of particular events or issues in the world.

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School Trips

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To enhance the school curriculum and enrich the children's learning experiences, we arrange trips to places of interest for each class at least once a year. Many trips are organised to link with the topics studied by the children that term. Typical examples of school trips are: visits to museums and/or art galleries; visits to a variety of places of worship such as the church, gurdwara, mandir, mosque or synagogue; visits to Cadbury World or the Lunt Roman Fort. Other trips may be arranged to develop a particular skill, for example sports tournaments and visits to sports festivals in conjunction with our School Sports Partnership.

In addition to this, every year, we aim to run a school residential visit for our Year 4 and Year 6 pupils. School residentials are great way of building resilience, teamwork and confidence as well as enhancing the taught curriculum. In 2020, our Year 4 pupils visited Bawdsey Manor as part of their Blue Abyss topic.

The safety of pupils on school trips is, of course, paramount and a full risk assessment is carried out prior to any trip. As part of the risk assessment, teachers are expected, where possible, to visit the location before the visit takes place. If any aspect of the trip presents an unacceptable risk then it will not go ahead. All risk assessments are approved by the Educational Visits Coordinator and Senior Leadership Team. Qualified First Aid trained staff accompany pupils on school trips.

We rely on voluntary contributions from parents to enable these trips to take place. We do try to keep the cost of trips down and always consider value for money when selecting places of interest/learning to visit.

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Visitors

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We regularly enjoy visitors in school. These may be people working within the community, such as police officers and firefighters, or occasional visitors such as authors. Often parents and carers with a particular skill will come into school to share their expertise.

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Outdoor learning

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Children love to be outside and, where appropriate, we are providing opportunities for children to learn outdoors so that they can put their learning in context. In Maths for example, measuring becomes more real if pupils are measuring real life objects and distances. We engage in fieldwork which is a key skill in Geography.

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