When we arrived at Lullingstone, we walked through meadows and woods until we reached the Forest School area. We got to know our ranger, Donna, and listened carefully to the rules for the area.

The children enjoyed their time creating dens, building habitats for woodland creatures and creating a rope bridge. Donna also showed the children a technique called whittling to remove some bark from a twig. We used these to create stick people by drawing a face and wrapping wool. These were later used in a story with Stick Man, Rose and Flinty, the baddie!

My favourite part was when we all gathered together around the fire pit and learnt what we needed to make a fire. Once we got our campfire going, we heated water in a kettle and mixed it with hot chocolate. We put some corn kernels into a pan and popped them on the fire to make our own popcorn. In true British summer-time school trip fashion, the rain began, but this only added to the atmospheric surroundings. Listening to the pitter-patter of the raindrops on the leaves above us, we sipped our warming hot chocolate and crunched our popcorn!

Many of the children’s favourite part of their day was getting to eat their packed lunch! Unfortunately, due to the rain, we couldn’t have our picnic outside and so ate in one of the classrooms. This didn’t dampen our spirits though, as everyone excitedly ate their picnic lunches!

After lunchtime, there was just enough time to visit the pond for some pond dipping. We were very lucky to catch some tadpoles. The children were very excited to see them swimming in their trays. We learnt the importance of always leaving nature where we found it, so we carefully tipped the tadpoles back into the pond before we headed back to the minibuses.

What a brilliant morning we had had! The children were absolutely fantastic representatives of Russell House the whole trip. I could not be prouder of Transition Class!