Paulton's Park - A blog by Jenna Lucas

Last week, I had the rather surreal experience of visiting a theme park for the first time in years without my children! It was only when I told them I was going for ‘work’ that they accepted me leaving them behind. I say ‘work’, but what I really mean is a type of recce. A teacher friend and I set off to Paulton’s Park in Hampshire to explore what is advertised as the UK’s most unique classroom, and what a delight it was. A treasure trove, resembling something one might expect to find in Hogwarts, full of a wealth of resources to support learning across the curriculum. 

​From a primary perspective, Professor Blast’s Lab is perfect for enhancing science, DT and computing topics beyond your usual classroom. K’Nex rollercoasters and a tour of the park’s rides allow pupils to consider different forces and how they affect the rides (physics suddenly becomes very cool!). Minibeast and Rainforest Ranger workshops look fantastic for supporting science across a range of year groups, and could also be used for cross-curricular topics. As a Year 6 teacher with a South America topic coming up, the supporting materials on deforestation and conservation brought up links to citizenship, English, geography and science- well worth a visit just for this! 

​Once I had explored the indoor lab, packed with pulleys, minibeasts and IT programmed K’Nex, I ventured outside to see the wildlife of Critter Creek and Beastie Burrow- brilliant for supporting learning of adaptations and animal classifications. And of course, being the thorough teacher that I am, it was only right that I checked out some of the rides, too! I’d seriously recommend flight of the Pterosaur!
 

​If you are interested in booking a visit for your class to Paulton’s Park, go to their website for more information: https://paultonspark.co.uk/education/