Fen School A, Walk 4

This walk, with 10 of the children from Years 3-4 (ages 7-9), along with their teacher and classroom assistant, took us to the Recreation Ground and then to the woods near the school.

As we move along Main Street, there is an animated discussion as the children eagerly tell us about the places they like to play. This is, in part, prompted by the playground, to which the majority go after school, and the children ask whether they can stop off during our walk to go on some of the playthings there. The discussion then turns to other places where the children like to play, including the Recreation Ground (or “Wreck” as they spell it when they’re writing it down as one of their special places), though at least one boy tells us he’d rather be playing at home on his Xbox.

About half of the group have taken the path from Main Street to the Wreck. One girl tells us “I go with my dogs and we go through the woods” (i.e. the trees by the side of the path); another, “I've built dens there and played hide and seek”.

At the recreation ground, we ask some of the children what they do here, and they tell us how they play football and ride their bikes, with one boy adding that he likes to come here to go fossil hunting. Only one girl says she never comes here (as she doesn't live in Fens VillageA), but another quickly corrects here: “Sometimes she does, she comes on picnics with us.”

We stand for a minute in silence with our eyes closed, then ask the children to tell us what they sensed: they tell us they heard birds, the train, and a “farmers gun, scarecrow gun thing”. We take the opportunity to ask what they’d most like to learn more about in their area, and most children agree that they are interested in finding out more about the river, though some are also intensely interested in the farms around (mentioning turkey farm and chicken farm). We then ask what they think is different about the place where they live compared to other places: “there's a lot of space”; “it’s flat”; “Other countries would be hilly and much more trees”; “it used to be under water and that flattened it”.

At the children’s suggestion, we go on to the pond in the conservation area, and all the children run onto a raised surface in the conservation area and through a bramble patch. This is a familiar place for many of them. One girl tells me she went there for a picnic with her friends; another tells me she comes here raspberry and blackberry picking. A boy tells me he comes by here to look for things. I ask him what he finds here: “mainly goldfish”.

Back on the road, and heading towards the woods, some children point out the “arrow” of geese flying overhead; they also point out the smell of burning: “barbeque!” “someone's breakfast!” There's a muddy pile by the side of the road; the children suggest that it might have been caused by a lorry from a nearby housing development. As we pass by some of the children’s houses, someone calls out “We can go to my house and play Xbox!”.

Only a couple of the children had been in the woods by the school before, but they enjoy exploring, and compare it to other woodlands. One boy knocks on a tree: “there'll be conkers around here”; and as soon as a tyre is found, they start jumping on it. One girl, who has been here before, explains “this is the safe zone, that's not the safe zone” (pointing); we ask why, but she just shrugs; “I don't know, it's just scary!”; someone shouts out “foxes!” by way of an explanation of what might be scary/unsafe.

Once again, we ask the children to reflect on what they sense. They describe hearing birds tweeting and the other children, and how they feel cold. The most enthusiastic descriptions are of the sense of smell. “It smells of wet leaves and disgusting”; -“It stinks! Like rotten socks!” (It’s worth noting that these declarations of how disgusting the smell is are made with a certain tone of glee – if it's disgusting, that's definitely something they're enjoying.)

“This place reminds me of where I walk my dog in Stuntney” explains one girl, and she continues to explain something about the geography of Stuntney and where she walks her dog; especially how you can see all around because it's on a hill – all the houses are on the hill, but around it's really flat. She also tells us how there are foxes there and a lot of the people who keep chickens and geese have problems as a result.

As we head back to school the children avail themselves of the opportunity to jump in the puddles on the road. They get great pleasure from this activity. At one point we have to stop and wait for one girl who is particularly enjoying a large puddle near where she lives.

When we get back to the school, one of the boys goes behind the trees and bushes rather than heading back along the driveway; he's told by the teacher to get back on the path – given that we had been moving very freely through the landscape up to this point, this marks a very abrupt return to normal school routine.