The visitor from South West Water came in to expand on our geography learning sequence of water and rivers.

On arrival our first task was to think about what South West Water did. Sophie, the education officer was fantastic in expanding the different roles and responsibilities South West Water have in our area, while expanding on our rural area through a real focus on the upstream thinking initiative.

Everyone was able to show off their learning and understanding of the water cycle by using their key vocabulary of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, runoff and collection. Sophie then explained how water is treated, she brought in samples from the tap and her local river. To all of our surprise the river was no different to the tap. Although, we were able to identify the small bubbles that indicated the gases built up from the tap pressure to rightly compare the two.

Our next task was to stand up around the classroom and we shared out 40metres of string, we guessed how far the whole pipe network would be if we laid the pipes from across the South West
in a straight line, asking the questions of what country we would get to?............
We found out it would take us to Australia and BACK!

Finally, Sophie explained all of the weird objects that have been found in the treatment works after being flushed down the toilet. Keys, false teeth, glasses and phones were amongst some of the strangest. We focused on the importance to not put oil down the sink and hair down the toilet
alongside the main culprit of blocked sewers and fatbergs… the wet wipe (even flushable wipes
are no good).

Year 5 did brilliantly to share the importance of how to save water, asking questions of how water supplies are affected in different seasons and weather conditions alongside the strategies to save our water.