Windmill pupils gain knowledge from taxi visit

​Children at Windmill Primary School in Wokingham got a taste of life in the City of London recently when as part of their Bright Lights, Big City project, a London cab paid a visit to the school.

​The pupils in Year One’s Rose Street Class are doing a term-long project on the capital, and as part of their study of how people work in the city, they had the loan of a taxi for the morning – courtesy of its driver, the husband of Windmill’s assistant head Clare Scragg.

“It was a real novelty for the children and they were very keen to look at every part of the taxi and ask plenty of questions about what everything did,” Mrs Scragg said. “They were very interested in it and had great fun playing at being passengers as well as taking a turn in the driver’s seat.

The taxi visit was just the first part of the term-long project, which will be spread right across the curriculum, from making 3D models of London buses to baking bread like that which was made at the Pudding Lane bakery, where the Great Fire of London started, and even Chinese New Year celebrations in Soho.

Windmill School is part of the GLF Schools group, a Surrey-based multi-academy trust which runs over a dozen schools across the south east, based on a model of strong collaborative working.

“Famously, cab drivers have to pass an enormous test called The Knowledge before they earn their licence,” said Mrs Scragg. “It may not have been on quite the same scale, but I know the children certainly learnt plenty from having a taxi come to visit the school – and we look forward to finding out a lot more over the rest of the term.”