Outside the Classroom

Experiential learning is the key to real understanding. Learning by doing, playing, getting wet or muddy, dressing up and actually taking part in things is learning for life and is what memories are made of.

Run along the battlements, storm the hilltop, be awed in a planetarium, load a cannon, paddle your own canoe - all possible on Berkhampstead trips! Adventure centres, stately homes, theatres, museums, environmental centres, castles, rivers, the forest…the list goes on!

playing the part

Berkhampstead children love to dress up - as Tudors, evacuees, a Victorian schoolchildren…there are plenty of opportunities to get into character throughout their time with us. A day trip to the The Steam Museum is a highlight for our Year 6 pupils, and the exciting day provides the most brilliant and authentic wartime experience for our young historians. They come to school dressed as evacuees, complete with gas mask boxes and ration cards, and spend the day experiencing first hand the difficulties their wartime counterparts would have encountered.

Sulgrave Manor is a fabulous venue for bringing Tudor times to life for our Year 4 historians. The costumes, drama workshop, music and dancing make it both a memorable and a fascinating experience.

Residential Trips

Eagerly anticipated, trips away from home give lots of opportunity for self-discovery and learning. Our children have opportunities to visit the Viney Hill Adventure Centre during their time in Prep, when they are in Year 5 and then again in Year 6. They develop character and friendships, resilience and independence - and a real appreciation of the comforts of home! Most importantly, the children learn how to work together as a team and support one another in order to achieve.

Off Site Visits

Year 6’s annual Rivers investigation, using iPads to photograph and record river depths, widths and meanders, is always a fantastic day out, and involves wading in wellies at various points of the Severn and the Wye. Other particularly memorable Geography trips include Year 5’s to the ‘tropical rainforest’ in Berkshire!

Getting People In

We regularly have visitors here, and recently we have welcomed the brilliant children’s author Jacqueline Wilson! Olympians and Paralympians, have visited us, and we often have the Minibeast Experience here to delight the children with all their creatures. The History Man and the Carducci Quartet have been here, and we’ve done workshops in mosaic, wire sculpture, skipping, capoeira and Indian dance - to name but a few, it’s an impressive line-up!