Survival Day 2016

Bradworthy primary Academy's Class 5 joined us for their Survival Day last week.

What a day it was ! Despite the dodgy weather, Class 5 were so excited about their Survival day that the weather didn't matter.  After a walk through 2 fields, we found our camp for the day, complete with army kitchen tent, a parachute canopy and 2 camping toilets.  Roli Jones was our Survival expert, with his colleague Neil from Cadets to help out.  The class were given their safety briefing upon arrival, followed by toilet instructions !!  There were then split into 2 groups, one went with Neil and the other with Roli.  Neil was teaching them about shelters and the children had to make a shelter and get their sleeping bags and ground sheet underneath too and then get it!  Roli was teaching the children about fires and what things can be used to make a fire if they were stranded!!  A big "DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME" warning was enforced!  The children then got to make their own fires and they loved it.  Then the groups swapped.  Meanwhile, Jenni was in charge of the kitchen and Andrew the open fires, so that a very yummy pasta and sauce lunch was cooked and served to very hungry children and staff.  After lunch, Roli did a dirty water demonstration and how to make dirty water safe to drink, followed by the most serious part of the day - survival food.  The children were introduced to locust and mealworms and Roli talked about the importance of protein, how children in third world countries have to find their food, how to be respectful of the food they find and how to kill/cook/eat it properly.  Several children did eat live mealworms and others ate mealworm omelette which was cooked on the fire pits.

It was a fantastic day and a real help to the children's recent topic in the classroom about being shipwrecked and having to survive!

Thank you Roli, Neil and Class 5 and staff for being wonderful.