Harvest Festival at Boarhunt

Sometimes something magical happens in teaching and the harvest festival at St Nicholas Church, Boarhunt this week was just one of those occasions.  Class 5C made their own cakes and bread from flour purchased at the water mill in Winchester, as part of their study of the River Itchen.  Next, a lovely homemade soup was produced using fresh vegetables from the school allotment.
Now for the challenge...to carry this harvest feast from the school, up over Portsdown Hill to the church - a journey of 2 miles or so (and of course the walk back too).
The views from the hill are magnificent and the children learn a great deal about their local area.  Fort Nelson provided a handy stop before heading across the fields to the church.

"It's beautiful," said Hollie. And it was.  We stood admiring the charming gate into the green, shaded churchyard where we were met by the now retired Reverend John Franks.

Heading into the church

Rev John Franks delivers the harvest sermon

The churchwarden explained the architecture and the children headed round to the west door and into the church.  The children were introduced to six parishioners who had been invited to share the harvest supper, which was put together during the service.

The main focus of the service was a prayer book in which every child had written a harvest prayer.  They had been studying harvest prayers from different traditions, including Christianity; they picked up the patterns and language of prayer and then wrote their own.  Every single children wrote a prayer and 'performed' it during the service.

The church looked beautiful and the autumn displays were the perfect setting for the harvest service and the prayers.

If you want to see some of the prayers you can read them shortly on our poetry blog.  The children gave the prayer book to the church before setting off back over the hill to Portchester carrying a bag of cooking apples and oranges.  Harvest certainly works its own little miracles.

Celebrating British Food Fortnight

On Wednesday 30th September, Wicor played host to a variety of guests all of whom had a common goal: to educate our children about food.

In Year 6 we were lucky enough to have Paul Watts, Executive Chef from the Meon Marriott Hotel, work alongside our children.

The dish to be prepared and cooked was rainbow trout with salsa and sauteed potatoes.  He brought along the rainbow trout and we supplied the rest from our allotments: garlic, potatoes, onions and tomatoes.

Each session started with Paul explaining that the fish had been caught locally and that they came from chalk streams.  He then showed them how to fillet the fish by cutting along the spine of each side,  remove the ribs with tweezers and square it up by trimming the edges.  This process fascinated everyone and even the slightly squeamish got caught up in the precision of the filleting.

After this we were on slightly more familiar territory and children were grouped dependent upon the job to be completed.  We had some cleaning, peeling and chopping potatoes; others chopping tomatoes or onions and some learning how to crush garlic with salt.  We then watched while Paul quickly pulled together the dish, and listened while he explained some of the intricacies of producing good quality food, such as holding the fillet down in the frying pan to stop it curling due to the contraction of the fish's flesh when it touched the hot pan.

The smell of the ingredients cooking was amazing and we couldn't wait for the tasting session.

Paul then arranged the food on three plates and everyone tucked in.  Even the non-fish eaters amongst us were tempted and the verdict was that it was wonderful.

 

Yum, yum, yum!