WHILE lots of children are performing Christmas productions, pupils at one Bolton school have been performing heart surgery!

The classroom was more like an operating theatre for Year 5 pupils at High Lawn Primary and Nursery School when they dissected lambs’ hearts as part of a science investigation.

Teacher, Charlene Parkinson, explained: “The circulatory system is our current science topic so I wanted to give the children a real hands-on learning opportunity.

“We could have simply looked at diagrams in a book but this was a far more engaging learning experience for the children.”

After donning surgical aprons and gloves, the fascinated pupils dissected the hearts in order to identify ventricles, atriums and the aorta.

And some of them were so inspired that they requested lambs’ hearts be added to family shopping list in order to continue their investigations.

Headteacher Dave Lane said: “At High Lawn we always strive for creativity and this lesson provided a hugely memorable activity that had a tremendous impact on the children’s understanding.”

PIC 1: Getting to the heart of the matter – young scientist(s) xxx with Miss Parkinson.