Year 7 camp is based in the Lake District on the banks of Lake Windermere. This year the camp coincided with the UEFA Euro 2012, and as any football fan will know it can be a game of two different half’s and so it was.
The pupils arrived to warm temperatures and sunny weather, and for the first two days the constant mantra was ‘put your sun hat on’. During the camp, pupils had three main activities, kayaking, a Gill scramble and a team challenge; in the evenings they took part in a number of camp games,
activities and tasks.
On the Wednesday all pupils participated in a full-day mountain walk all ascending ‘The Old Man of Coniston’, an 803m high mountain via a variety of routes. It was a glorious day with hardly a breath of wind and fantastic views, in fact the Isle of Man was clearly visible all day. On the descent all the groups had a paddle or a swim, for the hardy in a high mountain tarn.
Thursday the promised rain arrived and the mantra changed to ‘put your waterproofs on’. Activities of course continued and did not deter the pupils from getting even wetter whist kayaking and Gill scrambling.
If Thursday had been wet Friday was a veritable monsoon and parts of Cumbria had five inches of rain. Despite this and the terrible conditions the camp packed up in an orderly fashion and waded its way back to school.
The pupils did extremely well, just about coping with the horrendous wet conditions. My thanks to them for their behaviour and attitude; my thoughts to their parents who were probably faced with a mountain of wet and muddy equipment! My hope is they remember the activities and the sun rather than the rain.
So a game of two halves Garry, but special mention must go to the engine room driven by Mrs Holmes and the energy of the attackers Mr Ritchie, Mr Vardy and Miss Caunce, and what a central defence pairing of Mr Wilford and Miss Kenealy. This plus the super substitutes at the vital moments by the Gap students, Shelby Nobbs and Angus Trenerry made this a hard team to beat, back to the studio....................................