AS a part of their topic, ‘Once Upon a Time’, the younger children at St Andrew’s Infant School in Farnham have been learning the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff.

Robin Class children have helped make their role play into the troll’s den under the bridge, where there are lots of opportunities to write, read, explore numbers and find out about mini-beasts, while having fun acting out the story.

One of the days was dedicated specially to the goats of the popular children’s tale, as five of the Billy Goats’ friends arrived from Miller’s Ark Farm.

The goats spent the day in a pen full of straw, with hay bales to climb on and plenty to eat and drink, whilst the children gathered round to ask questions that they had prepared.

Lucy the farmer from Miller’s Ark was a font of knowledge and the children learnt a a great deal.

They were invited into the pen, a few at a time, to get some first-hand experience, stroking and feeding the goats

Follow-up work has already included painting detailed pictures of the goats, and over the next few weeks the children’s ‘enterprise’ focus will be on finding out about the importance of goats in the rural African economy, and raising money to buy a goat for a farmer through Oxfam.

According to staff the reception children have settled “beautifully” at St Andrew’s this year. Following a recent survey, the reception class parents all agree that they would recommend the school to another parent, that their child is happy at school, and that the school is well led and managed.

They also value how much they felt welcomed by the school community when their child started in September.