Day one!

After receiving a vigorous send off from parents, an excited year 5 set off to Robin Wood. For the third year in a row, the journey was vomit free (the magic newspaper doing its job!)

The coach driver received two warm rounds of applause from our incredibly polite children for negotiating two viaduct underpasses, and after an hour and 15 minutes and only 29 “Are we nearly there yets?” We had arrived. 

The luggage (along with our brave injured troop) were taken up the hill in the van whilst the rest of the group made the mile long trek up the to the castle. After being shown to our rooms and tangling with various bedding sheets, it was lunch time.

Fuelled by sandwiches and crisps, the groups set off to their respective activities. Giant swings has been conquered with many funny faces pulled. Zip wires have been ridden with Rock Paper Scissors played on the way down. Climbing walls have been scaled with the skill and guile of Spider-Man and all the children have worked together and encouraged each other really well. 

Crates have been stacked high and climbed using teamwork and cooperation. Young Robin Hoods have fired arrows into targets with precision. One group has even taken on the famous Dungeon of Doom and escaped thanks to their collaboration.

A hearty dinner was consumed by all in a (reasonably) quiet dinner hall, replenishing all the energy expended during the day. This was followed up with one final activity before the children all came together in one of the castle rooms for our team challenge. The children were invited to review the day and name others as stars for what they had done. The children’s answers were thoughtful and included words like ‘encouraged’ ‘helped’ and ‘teamwork’ which has made the adults very pleased indeed. 

At the time of writing, the children have had their hot chocolate (or orange juice if they preferred), as well as birthday cake (Happy Birthday Thomas 🙂 ), have taken their medicine (if applicable!) and lights have gone out and the children have settled down for some much needed rest. This has been a very successful start to our residential; the adults are very proud of all the children. See you all tomorrow night for hopefully more of the same. 

Night night.

The Y5 team