June 2023

Year 6 have been working hard on their song writing skills in our Music lessons, helped along the way by Ms Andrews.

Have a listen to their Leaver's song entitled 'Wish We Were Young' 

They are looking forward to performing it at the end of term.

YEAR SIX SCHOOL JOURNEY – DAY THREE

Today began with us having to wake the children up after a very good sleep (phew!). This set the day up to be a very good one. The sun was already shining as we walked down to breakfast where the children were treated to the same selection of breakfast treats and tucked in to set themselves up for a full day of activities.

This morning the groups experienced abseiling, a sensory trail, climbing and Jacob’s ladder. Abseiling was a challenge for the children as the tower was quite high. Apparently, the worst part was going over the top. Once they were on the way down, they enjoyed it. One group were told that they were the quickest abseilers the group leader had worked with! Quite an achievement as they work with lots of children over the year.

The sensory trail involved the children being blind folded and following a rope through a wooded area. In some groups we saw some great communication skills and future leaders of the world. In other groups it was not so great!

After the morning activities and time to apply more sun lotion and refill water bottles (it has been a hot one here!) we gave out your letters. The children went off to read their letters and they were all gratefully received. To the amusement of the adults, some of the children decided that they would share any spelling mistakes in the letters they received. To take it one step further, a couple of the children decided to mark and grade their letters (sorry … this was not our idea!!!).

After lunch, we went off to fencing, The giant swing, all aboard, abseiling and raft building. Group 2 were especially pleased to have the raft building as it involved a little bit of building, a little bit of paddling and a lot of falling off and cooling down in the water. The giant swing again made children face their fears and I was pleased with how well they challenged themselves and supported each other. Fencing took place in the main sports hall. The children did really well despite it being incredibly hot and having to wear jackets and full face masks.

A trip to the shop kicked off the evening, before dinner and our evening entertainment, Passport to the World. The children were put in teams of 3 and they had to use a map to find markers around the site and answer questions about different countries. Racing to find all the countries and answer as many questions about the countries as they could, the children certainly got their steps up and some of the answers they came up with kept us entertained. One particular child made Mrs Romain laugh so hard with their pronunciation we had to stop for a while for her to compose herself. Mrs Romain is also planning some emergency geography lessons before the children head off to secondary school!!!

I am sure we will have another good night’s sleep and your children are all looking forward to seeing you tomorrow with, hopefully, some wonderful memories to share.

See you all tomorrow!

YEAR SIX SCHOOL JOURNEY - DAY TWO

After a fairly good night, where the children were, although not necessarily asleep early or for very long, they were quiet in their rooms at a reasonable time; the day began.

Breakfast was a lovely selection of cereals, toast and a range of cooked items. Many of the children were very pleased to see hash browns on the menu. It was a good job the children had a hearty breakfast, as they had a really busy day ahead.

The children split into 3 groups and went off to complete activities including raft building, Jacob’s ladder, all aboard, giant swing and zip wire and all three groups came together to take part in an orienteering challenge. At the lake, the children carefully constructed their rafts, listening carefully to the instructions given by the group leader. They were very impressed when their raft floated but once on the raft, the skills needed to stay balanced were slightly lacking. After paddling round in circles for a while the children ended up having a swim, much to their delight and amusement.

The zip wire was a popular choice for many of the children. Once harnessed up, the children took a leap of faith off the top and sped down the line to the bottom. The knack at the bottom was to hit the ground running so you didn’t end up face down in the gravel or disappearing back up the zip line. After a few attempts, the children definitely got the hang of it and achieved much more graceful landings. I have to say though, I am not sure what the photographs will be like as the sun was shining so hard, we just had to point and press and hope for the best!

The giant swing was another popular choice. Some of the children faced their fears to get strapped in and after one go decided that they did rather enjoy it and wanted a second go, this time going higher. I have had a sneak preview of some of the photos of this activity and there are some great facial expressions as the swing was released and the swing swung into action.

After a lovely dinner, the evening event was a game of Cluedo. This involved the children hunting for a range of characters and get clues to decide who had pranked Charlie the Crocodile. Fortunately, the weather had cooled down and it made the activity a lot more pleasant to complete.

Now we are getting ready to settle down for bed with a lot of very tired children and I hope this means a lovely night’s sleep for us all.

YEAR SIX SCHOOL JOURNEY - DAY ONE

Well our school journey has finally started.  The coach journey was a quiet and calm affair until the last half an hour when the children decided that it would be a brilliant idea to recreate the music recital from Thursday evening.  At some points however, the back of the coach were singing a completely different song to the front of coach giving the eardrums a very interesting sensation.  Fortunately the coach driver didn't seem to mind too much and it did make the last half an hour of the journey go very quickly.

Once we arrived at the PGL site, we unloaded the coach and the children carried their bags to their rooms.  There was very little chance to unpack as we headed straight into dinner.  There were a range of choices and a very nice salad bar so all the children found something they liked.  Some children were not as hungry as others though as they had munched their way through a mound of snacks on the coach on the way down!  After dinner, there was time for the children to return to their rooms and unpack before a quick tour of the site and a first look as some of the activities they will be doing.  Once this was complete there was some freetime.  For a lot of the children freetime meant rushing to the field to play a game of football.  We played for at least half an hour before losing the ball in a pile of stinging nettles!  A couple of long planks and some good thinking soon rescued it though and the game continued.  Other children sat in their rooms chatting while others made the most of the lovely weather to sit outside.  Mrs Corke even led an impromptu art lesson as some of the children had brought sketchbooks and notebooks to draw in.

This evening the children all went to the camp fire, where they learnt new songs and some nifty dance moves to go with them.  I think the earlier warm up on the coach meant the children were ready to belt out the songs and impressed the PGL leaders.

All that is left now is getting the children into their rooms and asleep at some point.  Wish us luck!