Our vision:

Growing, Achieving and Flourishing together in Mind, Body & Spirit.  

EYFS - Learning in the Wilderness

As part of our wider curriculum offer, children in The Woodlands (EYFS) experience weekly sessions of outdoor learning in our wilderness environment. The Wilderness is a safe fenced area accessed from our main playground. It has a variety of trees and long grasses with pathways running through it. 

We get fully waterproofed up so we are ready for all weathers. The children are encouraged to get their outdoor clothes and dress themselves. This is an essential life skill towards independence. Sometimes the children help each other with wellies and zips.

Once we are ready, we head to the Wilderness for our learning adventure! We cover many aspects of the EYFS curriculum; looking at weather, studying seasons, identifying common trees and flowers, looking at maths in the environment. The children are active throughout this learning experience and complete physical development activities such as, building see saws and climbing trees.  

The children collect various interesting items from nature which we use in our classroom provision. Learning in the wilderness also provides the opportunity for the children to socialise with each other and build relationships with peers and adults. Despite adverse weather, we always endeavour to go out, this helps the children to develop their skills of resilience. To cope in wet, cold and windy weather is a huge achievement for our children, so every session ends with a lovely warm cup of hot chocolate. The children love going to the wilderness and always return with smiles on their faces and rosy cheeks!

Year 1 - Beach School

As part of our wider curriculum offer, children in Year 1 get to experience a block of Beach School learning. This takes place in Summer term on Westward Ho! Beach and Northam Burrows. Through Beach school the children cover Science, Geography, Art and Personal Social and Health Education (PSHE). We are so lucky to have a beach on our doorstep and are deeply passionate about providing outdoor learning opportunities for our children, so that they can explore, create and be curious about the world around them.

During our Beach School sessions, the children will develop their skills, to not only work as part of a team but gain skills of independence. We cover many areas of the year 1 curriculum; within our Science we will look at seasons, learn about plants, identifying local flowers and plants, using and developing our observational skills. Maths learning will take place within the natural environment. To enhance our geography curriculum, we will use and develop our skills of mapping and looking at the physical geography of where we live. This is also a great opportunity for children to be active and develop their social and emotional wellbeing. Beach School sessions will enable the children’s learning to be enhanced through their first-hand experiences on the beach. We firmly believe that not all classrooms have four walls. 

Year 2 – Swimming

Living by the coast learning to swim is an essential skill to ensure children are able to stay safe when on the beach or around water. At St George’s we recognise the importance of this, children in Year 2 swim fortnightly throughout the Spring and Summer terms. We swim at Active Torridge in Northam and each child has access to eleven weeks of 45 minute swimming sessions across the two terms. Groups are split by need and three highly qualified swimming instructors support children to develop their swimming and self-rescue skills. 

Active Torridge follow the Swim England School Swimming and Water Safety Charter. There are six levelled awards that are progressive. In Level 1 and 2 children use swimming aids and planned activities allow children to develop water confidence and explore pool rules, help signals and why beach flags are used. Award 3-6 are performed with no swimming aids. Children explore different types of floats, skulling and treading water. They learn stroke technique and how to identify hazards and ways to get help. Once Level 6 has been achieved children progress onto the Aquatics award which explores peer work, mini-polo and develops stamina and a Self-Rescue award which focuses on and further develops self-rescue skills. 

Children at St George’s enjoy swimming sessions and for many children it is their favourite part of the week. Some children are nervous as they have never been swimming before but through support from both the school and pool staff they develop the confidence to ‘have a go’ and as they develop their skills look forward to going to the pool. 

What our children say about their swimming lessons.

“I love swimming, I like jumping in and kicking with the noodles.”

“I was scared and didn’t like the splashing. We played fun games and I can jump in and blow bubbles now.”

“I can float on my tummy and my back and can swim to the wall.”

“My favourite bit was going down to the deep end.”

“I can swim on my back now, I couldn’t do it before.”