Here’s everything you may have missed from our brilliant Prep School Enrichment Week!
From 16-20 June, the halls of our Prep School were abuzz with excitement and energy as pupils from Nursery to Year 8 delved into exploration and immersive learning outside of their standard curriculum.
This year’s events featured a wonderful selection of trips, outdoor activities, and classroom workshops that made each day a vibrant learning experience for all.
Under the guidance of our Deputy Head, Dan Jones, the week’s programme unfolded, drawing pupils into a world where science, natural history, art and drama intersected with imagination and practical skills.
Starting the week with roar-some adventure, our Year 1 and 2 pupils headed to Roarr! Dinosaur Adventure in Norwich as part of their dinosaur themed week. During an action-packed day at the UKs largest dinosaur park, our pupils became Jurassic explorers searching for all the dino-animatronics through the Valley of The Dinosaurs and picked up their brushes as future palaeontologists in search of fossils. Back at the Prep School during the rest of the week, the pupils continued learning all about the Jurassic period with a series of wonderful carousel activities, including amber soap making, fossil identification, a mini archaeological dino dig, clay modelling, arts and crafts, and a fossil hunting trip to Bawdsey Beach.
Expanding on their ‘Living Things’ curriculum, our Year 3 and 4 pupils began the week with pond dipping, in search for the big five: pond snails, water scorpions, water boatman, damsel nymph, and freshwater shrimp, before continuing their water wildlife week in the classrooms, studying life in lakes, rivers and oceans, and creating their own dioramas of the Great Barrier Reef.
Our Year 5 pupils put on their safari hats and became animal adventurers as they explored the 60 acres and 150+ species at Colchester Zoo to kick-start a week of African Adventures at the Prep School, studying a variety of Sahara species, their habitat, the food web, conservation efforts, and how climate change and human impacts have affected desert life.
After practising their ‘swish-and-flick’ technique all week, our Year 6 pupils were transported to the wizarding world for a thrilling trip to Harry Potter Studios, where they explored all the magic from the movies; including window shopping along Diagon Alley, adventuring into the Forbidden Forest, stepping into the Great Hall, standing on Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters, alongside seeing all the wonderful costumes and props from the films. At the end of the week, they also visited the Senior School science labs for a morning of biology, studying plant life and conducting experiments to see how sunlight effects the rate of photosynthesis.
Our Year 7 pupils had a fantastic day exploring the incredible collection of aviation history at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, home to some of the most famous aircraft in the world, including Lancaster, Spitfire, Hurricane, Concorde and Vulcan. Pupils experienced the evolution of aviation from the early days of flight to the military and technological advancements during the Second World War and the Cold War, through to the future of Airspace and conservation projects.
Readying our eldest Prep pupils for Senior School life and beyond, our Year 8 pupils took part in a brilliant Career’s Day featuring CV workshops, inspirational stories of individual success and advice on how to create your own future pathway. The pupils also expanded their language skills with two brilliant public speaking and performing arts workshops, before closing the week with a taste of DofE in our annual ‘Stranded!’ activity, having to navigate their way back to Brandeston Hall from an unknown drop off point out in the Suffolk countryside.
A huge thank you to the dedicated staff who embraced the week’s spirit, and to our pupils whose enthusiasm and participation made the event a testament to the joy of learning at Framlingham College.
