Pupils from Heacham Infant and Heacham Junior Schools came together for an action-packed trip that brought their classroom learning to life and saw them get hands-on in nature.

The 54 children from Years 2 and 3 spent the day at Holkham nature reserve, where activities supported topics they have been covering in class.

Year 3 Class Teacher Harriet Munson accompanied the groups, along with Year 3 Teaching Assistant Harriette Pateman, Year 4 Class Teacher Katie Cornwell, and Year 4 Teaching Assistant Stephanie Johnson.

“The trip linked to Year 2’s current Science unit ‘Living Things and their Habitats’ from our knowledge-rich curriculum, and Year 3’s current Science unit on life cycles in nature where we have been focusing particularly on plants,” she explained.

“In the morning, Year 3 spent time in the Walled Garden where they explored the wide range of flowers, herbs, fruits, and vegetables that grow there. The children were given two big buckets of compost to have a feel of and learnt about its use.

“Picking up some trowels, we then had the chance to do some digging in one of the planters. The children loved seeing what they could dig up – particularly worms.

“Next we grabbed some mini glass bottles to make our ‘magic potions’ using herbs and flowers from the garden. The children were fascinated by the array of choice and aroma.

“Our last activity before lunch was to take some of the compost from earlier and plant our own seeds, including wildflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and peas in little trays for each child to take home.”

The Year 2 children had an equally active time hunting for bugs in the woodland area of the historic estate.

Ms Munson continued: “With brushes and magnifying pots in hand, the children got busy turning over logs, searching in the soil, and scrambling through the leaves to see what living organisms they could find.

“The children then matched their findings against the bug identifier sheet to see what kinds of things we had caught – we had some fantastic discoveries from snails and spiders to some rather large and colourful ground beetles.”

The pupils rounded off the session by making clay models of their discoveries, before releasing their catches and swapping activities with the Year 3 group.

The trip is a regular for the schools, which are both members of the West Norfolk Academies Trust – although this was the first time the two year groups had visited together.

Ms Munson added: “We try to go to Holkham every year, this year being the first we have visited across both Heacham Infants and Junior schools.

“The benefit to the children is that they get to explore a wide range of hands-on workshops outside of the classroom, and the opportunity to take home their creations, such as their planting trays, magic potions, and clay bugs – plus a wealth of knowledge on how plants grow and where bugs live.”