School News

110 bronze Duke of Edinburgh participants had a sunny start to their award as they spent 24th and 25th September training at Henley Fort near Guildford.

110 student, 13 staff and a couple of sixth form assistants arrived on the Saturday morning with feelings of excitement, some nerves and the obligatory large bags of pasta, one group carrying 3kg for just one meal!  Students then completed a day of skills training, covering topics such as first aid, map skills, food and nutrition (pasta again), campcraft and risk awareness.  By the end of the day students had been bandaged, placed in the recovery position, pitted themselves against each other in the map symbol challenge, calculated how much food they really need(back to the pasta!), succeeded in getting a tent back in its bag and performed the ever popular ‘tick rap’.

Following an evening meal which consisted of lots of (you’ve guessed it) pasta, students settled into tents and silence descended on Henley Fort………apart from the odd snore…..

Sunday dawned misty but soon the sun burned through and after the arduous task of cleaning a trangia to Mrs Pickett’s exacting specifications, students departed into the countryside to put their map skills to the test, accompanied by staff members they travelled as far afield as St Martha’s Hill, successfully making their way back to pack away dry tents, successfully getting them back into bags (not an easy task) and heading home for showers and a comfortable night’s sleep!

For the staff it was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend as the students showed themselves to have good leadership qualities and worked together well in teams.  Whilst out navigating we encountered several members of the public, one of whom commented that the students were ‘top of the class for politeness’

But what did the students think…….

‘Phenomenal weekend!  I learnt loads and got to work with people I don’t usually work with’

‘Great, the walk on Sunday was fab’

What next for the students?  They will now work on their individual sections in preparation for the practice expeditions in May 2012 – has someone booked the sunshine again……

Mrs H Pickett
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