Farm School

Ethos & Benefits

Childhood should be full of discovery, adventure and joy. This is why animals at Jabberwocky play a special role in our daily nursery activities. During their time in nursery, children learn how to take care of our five giant African Land Snails, they enjoy preparing different vegetable snacks for Gordon and Gilbert resident guinea pigs and share our Forest School with hens and a cockerel. At Jabberwocky, we aim for children to build confidence, curiosity, love for animals and the great outdoors through these hands-on experiences.

What else do animals teach children?

Children learn how to treat animals and also each other with love and respect. Watching animals grow and change teaches the children about life cycles. Sharing the fun of animal care brings children closer together and encourages them to work as a team and family.
Caring for animals helps children understand how much they can help nature.

Our Animals

Here are the lovely animals we have at Jabberwocky!

Clucker - Cockerel

Clucker is our resident Forest School cockerel. He got his name from his well known reputation for being very noisy! Clucker is usually heard before he is seen and the children often recognise his call long before we arrive at Forest School. He lives alongside our other hens.

Sweet Lady Apple - Hen

The most unique name of one of our hens is ‘Sweet Lady Apple’, fondly named by one of our previous children. We are unsure of how the name came about however it brings a smile to our faces as it’s so lovely and truly unique!

Gilbert & Gordon - Guinea Pigs

Our two nursery guinea pigs live happily in their ‘palace’ in the sensory garden. The staff team alongside the pre-schoolers at nursery when the guinea pigs arrived were in charge of their names. Together they decided the names had to begin with G for Guinea pig! After some phonics style brainstorming, many suggestions were made and we settled on Gordon and Gilbert!

Giant African Land Snails

Our family of snails has grown over the years. The original two ‘Shelly’ and ‘Sheldon’ already had their names when we re-homed them here at Jabberwocky. Since then the family has expanded with the addition of Lightning and Bolt (due to their notable speed) and Gary, Gary Chunk and Gary Chunk junior. Gary got his name from the snail in the cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants. Gary chunk was quickly named when the children observed that Gary Chunk looked like Gary but had a bigger shell and Gary chunk Junior, also had a similar shell to the other two Gary’s but was the youngest of the Gary’s! So there you have it, a whole family of fondly named Giant snails