Wick Court Farm Residential

On Monday 15th November 2021, 36 excited year 6 pupils, boarded a coach to Gloucestershire. Our destination was Wick Court Farm where we were going to spend 4 nights and 5 days helping to feed, groom and care for all the animals on the farm. It was super tiring but extraordinarily thrilling!

Our days started at 6:45am and before our breakfast, we had to go and do the first jobs of the day. After breakfast, we met in the parlour, got into our groups and set off to more work. Each group had a different job to do and it was fun telling our friends all about them. We learnt lots of interesting farm facts and had the chance to meet chickens, cows, sheep, horses, ducks and geese. We also worked with the pigs and Paddy the Daddy, who was the main pig, was also the star of the show! He was big and smelly and loud!!!!

We had the opportunity to go to a neighbouring dairy called Oldbury where we made the calves their milk, fed the cows and watched the high tech equipment milk the cows! It was fascinating watching the robotic machine use its sensors and lasers to find the cow's udders and milk them. We were astonished to see how much milk a cow can produce!

Pig weighing was one of the most popular activities there! First of all, the pigs were let out of their pens and then we had to use some special boards to encourage and coax the pigs onto the weighing scales! Some of the pigs were well behaved and did what they were told but some pigs were very cheeky and caused chaos! But Year 6 showed perseverance and resilience and finally got all the pigs back in their pens!

All in all it was a wonderful experience and has taught us a range of life skills. It was fantastic to show our parents that we can be trusted to look after ourselves for a week. It gave us independence, an opportunity to work with others and most of all it was lots of fun! We wish we were still there!

By Araf, Neriah and Hajarah