Pupils enjoy a Magical Day in the Park

Now in its third year, all age groups had the opportunity to have a day off school to take part in a series of 18 different stalls around Saumarez Park for three days from Wednesday.

In the Victorian Walled Garden, a Peter Rabbit experience was created for the younger children as well as an apothecary garden to help them learn about herbs and medicines.

Activities included, camouflage art, basket weaving, fire and forest skills and driftwood mini boat making. There were also several classes based on a variety of plants from a succulent 'fairy garden' session to herbs planted in milk cartons with helpers from States works.

Founder of the Sarah Groves Foundation, Vic Groves, said it was an event which matched perfectly with the charity's main intentions.

'We aim to, as our strap line says, 'Enhance Young Lives', and this presents some of the best value of all the projects we get involved in,' he said.

Two visiting outdoor learning businesses from the UK joined 16 groups of local technicians as well as volunteers from the Grammar School International Baccalaureate class to help out on the day.

Art for Impact, comprised of Guernsey artists Helen Bonner-Morgan and Hugh Rose, were working on two different projects with the children and said that being out in the open helped to spark their imagination.

'I'm making a big collaborative piece with individual tiles which will be about 20ft wide and 8ft tall when we're finished.

'They'll be looking at nature on a micro and macro level so taking inspiration from patterns found in space down to those on shells,' said Mrs Bonner-Morgan.

Fire and forest skills teacher Chris Harvey said the day was a rare chance for children to get hands on experience working outdoors.

'Anything with food and fire they love,' he said.

The children were learning how to make bread by twisting the dough onto a stick and placing it near the fire.

'When I asked them who had used a steel and flint before to make a fire a lot put their hands up, then when I said 'not on [video game] Minecraft', a lot put them down again. So it's great they get to actually learn these things in the real world,' he said.

One of the organisers of the event, Jane Hunter, said they could not have anticipated how the event has grown.

'We had the first event in 2014 when one of the volunteers had the idea of the Peter Rabbit garden, it's grown exponentially since then.' she said.