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Junior School Residentials

Junior School Residentials

Over the past few weeks St Mary's Junior School has been an even calmer, and quieter, place than usual as Years 4, 5 and 6 have all been away on their residential trips.

Year 6 enjoyed a whole week away in Normandy, France learning about World War II. On their return their particular highlight seems to have been the French markets and the opportunity to practise their French speaking skills. Not to mention being able to purchase yummy French cheese! In fact I hear the return coach journey was a pungent one with all the cheese on board!

Year 5 spent three days at Grafham Water doing a variety of challenging outdoor activities, including sailing, high ropes and mountain biking, and Year 4 have just today returned from their trip to Burwell House.

The girls had a wonderful time at Burwell House. They spent yesterday morning working on team building skills by completing various tricky, yet exciting activities. A popular activity was finding their way through the famous Burwell Challenge Trail, blindfolded!

After break, the girls took turns at either pond-dipping - discovering different insects like newts and leeches, or have been budding filmmakers in the film studio, as either the technical crew or performing their news report scripts. I hope you enjoying looking at a selection of photographs in the gallery.

Residential trips are a very traditional part of the summer term at St Mary's Junior School. For many of the girls the trip is the most memorable and rewarding part of the year, it’s an opportunity to get to know their classmates better and indeed their teachers. For the younger girls it may be there first time away from home which in itself can be a huge challenge, and for the older girls they have the opportunity to learn more about themselves, work as a team, take risks and build confidence. For these reasons residentials are incredibly worthwhile and valuable.

Research conducted by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) shows that outdoor adventure education involves highly beneficial collaborative learning experiences with a high level of physical (and often emotional) challenge. Practical problem-solving, explicit reflection and discussion of thinking and emotion are all key elements of our residential trips. The experiences they expose our girls to, and the team work and collaboration that takes place, consistently shows positive benefits for our girls in School so we will continue to provide these residential trips opportunities. This year we are extending our programme to Year 3 who will have a 'home residential'. Year 3 girls will camp on the school grounds overnight in bell tents after cooking their dinner on an open fire and learning new bush craft skills.  

Why not have a look at our gallery of images from the residentials to see what a lovely time was had by all.