Over the Spring bank holiday weekend, a group of Abbotsholmians travelled to North Wales to compete in the 5th Round Square Adventure Race. The event was conceived and is organised by Abbotsholme and draws together teams from Round Square schools across the country. This year eight teams (each with six pupils from Year 9 and 10, containing at least two pupils of each sex) took part, including two teams from Abbotsholme. The event is designed to be arduous and the pupils were risen early on Saturday morning to begin a rotation of activities: climbing, canoeing, hiking and mountain bike orienteering. That over, the teams faced a night orienteering competition before collapsing into bed. On the Sunday, the teams raced up and down Y Garn, one of the 3,000 foot summits of Snowdonia.
The race demands a lot in terms of outdoor skills, physical fitness, organisational skills and mental resilience. A team from Abbotsholme has won the event for the last two years, but this year the Abbotsholme ‘Animals’ team was narrowly beaten into second place by the team from Gordonstoun School, who had travelled all the way down from northern Scotland to take part. The Abbotsholme ‘Stars’ finished in third place. The Abbotsholmians did themselves great credit and their strong result was a fitting reward for the training and preparations they had undertaken. Tom Palmer, organiser of the event, paid tribute to the pupils involved: ‘They have learnt a great deal from this experience and I am very proud of the commitment they showed.’ He hopes that next year’s team might be able to wrench the trophy back from Gordonstoun, but writes: ‘Although it is a competition, which does give an extra motivation for the pupils to work hard and do their best, the event is, in many ways, an outdoor festival, which brings young people from different schools together, to enjoy the outdoors. Everyone there was a winner, really.’
The Abbotsholme Animals were: Jack Sanderson, Jacob Threadgould, Olivia Roberts, Charlotte Thornewill, James Hudson and Jeremy Clark.
The Abbotsholme Stars were: Oliver Turbitt, Harriet Green, Ella Pownall, Callum Bodger, Ben Miller and Robert Craven.