I think I've posted before about residentials? They are essentially school team-building trips conducted in varying distances from the school (age-related: younger year groups may only go 20 miles away, while older groups may go up to several hundred miles away), and varying lengths of time (again, age-related: younger groups only venture away two nights, elder year groups may go away for two weeks). There are various places that specialize in residentials, and usually a school sticks with the same residential. (In year 2, the kids always go to Conwy, or the Year 4's always travel to Camp Oakwood, etc.) The trips usually have a focus of teamwork, and testing yourself, confidence building, self esteem building, etc. and are often physical in nature, rather than bookwork.
This year, N's year group went to Robinwood, as they always do, for three nights. He enjoyed it very much. He has a small year group-he is one of 13 kids. Here is a link to the photos they took: https://www.flickr.com/photos/11940755@N03/sets/72157650065919034/. Beware, there are nearly 500 photos!!!! He has a black jacket on some of the first photos. Later, he's seen in a football sweatshirt with a US football helmet on it (easy to spot, as UK football is what? Yes, football here is soccer. If you're going to play footie, you're going to play what Americans call soccer. His classroom teacher is in the background. Some of the activities that are pictured are the giant swing (so giant they need to harness you in to protective gear and you need to wear a helmet), they swim in a big piranha pool (I don't know the whole story on that, will have to ask N-he's told me, but alas, I've forgotten), a "puzzle" the group needs to solve, some pyramid building, an underground maze, archery, and canoeing. They had to build their own rafts from inner tubes and rope, then have a race in them (guess they had to work! and not fall apart), looks like some type of obstacle course where you needed to follow the person in front of you while you were blindfolded, a trapeze (guess they thought maybe they could send all the kids to perform at the circus), an outdoor climbing/obstacle course, and the ever popular team-building activity of crate stacking where again, they need to be harnessed, and indoor rock climbing. Needless to say, they come home very tired!!!!
J also had his annual residential--they go off to Ullswater for six nights. Ullswater is, up in the Lake District, which if very beautiful. No photos, but they do the same types of activities, just stepped up a bit, as they are that much older (and wiser???). On J's annual report, they tell you a bit about some of the things that went well for them on the residential. I think J tried sailing, hiking, orienteering, etc. He is in a phase where he likes to go geo-caching. Not sure if it was spurred by the residential, or not.
Finally, this week I've put the kids in a little one week course on water sports. They travel to the edge of the Wirral Peninsula, and will have a taster of sailing, windsurfing, kayaking, windsurf board games, Canadian canoes, stand up paddle boats, raft building and power boating. I can't wait to find out what Canadian canoes are!!! Not sure if the kids (W and N) were serious or not, but they thought they were gonna be playing Monopoly while windsurfing for the windsurf board games, and were rather confused on how they would go about doing that--do 2 people go on the board???
That's all for now, folks!!!! See you soon.
