What we love about Wicor grounds...

Chickens and Bees

"We are just so lucky that we have a wide variety of wildlife in our grounds including chickens and bees. Our chickens are very important to us and we sell their eggs to our local community."
Trinity





Wildlife

"At this school we grow varieties of plants that attract lots of different insects and animals. We also have an expert on plants and animals so we know when to plant the plants and how to work with them."
Jasmyn









Orchards
"I love the fact we have an orchard with 13 different varieties of apple trees. The smell of sweet fresh fruit is really strong in the autumn. When the apples are ready to pick we like to taste, cook and even sell them to our school community."
Eliza


Our allotment
"We are very lucky to have such a wonderful allotment at our school. In our allotments we grow lots of plants all from seed, so we can watch the whole of the cycle in which it grows. Our allotment is full of different types of plants. We love going outside and enjoying our allotment."
Aimee

Tasting the difference at Harfest

Year 5 were given a seasonal feast for the senses at this year's Harfest celebration, using pumpkins we had patiently watched grow from seeds in our allotment.

Our pumpkins

The talented head chef, Fergus Coyle, from Rick Stein's Fistral Beach restaurant in Cornwall arrived to give a demo of pumpkin risotto cooked alfresco in our new coastal garden.

Fergus Coyle explaining the workings of a risotto

We grew and harvested the pumpkin from our allotment. Ingredients for the recipe included arborio rice, mascarpone, sage, pumpkin puree, seeds and saffron which smelt very strong.

Eagerly we watched the cooking which took about half an hour. While this took place we had the chance to ask questions to Seb who is front of house at the Winchester restaurant ( Rick Stein, Winchester ). We learnt that that some Rick Stein's recipes are kept as classics on the menu as they are so popular. Most popular dishes include lobster and steak.

When the risotto was cooked lots of us loved the dish because the flavour of the pumpkin was delicious and the sauce was so nice. We really want to cook this at home after we have carved our pumpkins for Halloween.

Watching and waiting in the coastal garden

Our very own sausage. Part One

4M were given the exciting challenge of producing a 'Wicor' sausage using ingredients sourced from our grounds. Surveys were given to our staff and parents asking what their preferred ingredients are in a sausage. We extended our market research by conducting a sausage survey in Portchester village.

Our local award winning butcher Twell's kindly offered to produce our sausage and we had a chance to actually see him making sausages.The smell was meaty as we looked around the butchers .The machines were huge and weird because they were different to what we would expect them to look like in real life .

The sausage meat went into the top of the machine, the butcher pressed a button the meat shot out in casing in one long tube shape. To make the sausages into the right shape they were knotted by a method called knitting.



Ruby, Ellie      4M