You are here: EDUCATION » FOUNDATION & KEY STAGE 1

Pre-School and Key Stage 1

  • Our talks and tours take from thirty to forty minutes.
  • We like to keep the size of the group to around twenty-five pupils and adults.
  • Whilst many of our talks and tours relate to the National Curriculum, are designed to enthuse and inspire the children.

You can choose from the following topics:

A Keeper’s Day:

One of our keepers will take the group on a tour of some of the animals in either:

The Walled Garden - where they will see penguins, meerkats, otters, lemurs, tamarins, squirrel monkeys and sloths, as well as a selection of birds that may include parrots, hornbills, kookaburras and road-runners.

Or

The Children’s Farm and Lake Walk – where they will see llamas, goats, pigs, dwarf zebu, cranes, tapirs, peccaries, capybaras, wallabies and wolves.

In either case, the keeper will carry a selection of food items for some of the animals and answer the children’s questions about them whilst the animals are being fed.

[KS1:Sc2:2abfg]

The Variety of Life:

We offer two tours, one for a dry day and one for a wet day.

Dry Day Tour: Starting with the penguins in the Walled Garden, we look at the variety of birds and mammals in the Walled Garden comparing how their food and their natural habitats are related to their teeth and colouration.

Wet Day Tour: Starting in the Reptile House we look at fish, frogs, snakes, lizards, crocodiles, tortoises, gibbons, bats, hedgehogs, ants, spiders, cockroaches and snails, trying to put each into an appropriate group as we go. (If it is not too wet, we also look at snowy owls and vultures).

[KS1:Sc2:2ae,4b]

The Life of Plants:

One of our team of gardeners will use the plants in the Walled Garden to explain how seeds grow into plants and examine a range of plant leaves, stems and flowers of native and exotic species, including a range of cacti, tree ferns and tropical plants (if the weather is wet, this tour will spend a good portion of its time in the Tropical House).

[KS1:Sc2:3abc]

Touch Table

Using our themed rainforest room and collection of artefacts, pupils have the chance to handle a range of objects, including rhinoceros horns, elephant tusks, turtle shells and snake skins as well as a selection of skulls and teeth. This session is a good way to let the very young pupils have a time-out in what is otherwise a long day’s walk around the Park.