On Tuesday, Year 3 set off on their first residential trip to Leeson House in Swanage. What an adventure!

On Day 1, we walked from Leeson House to Dancing Ledge. It was a long walk with lots of stiles to cross. Our guide, Anna, gave us lots of breaks and told us many stories about Leeson House and the local area. Did you know that it was originally a boarding school for girls? Or that it played a very important part in WW2 when it was used for top secret radar research? We also heard lots of exciting stories about Isaac Gulliver, the famous Dorset smuggler, and how he used to hide barrels of brandy in the roof of the church until disaster struck one day … ask us what happened! In fact we heard lots of gory stories – poor old Frederick Harris failed to do up the buckles properly on the donkey harness in the quarry and when the buckle broke the capstan and spack whirled round at top speed and knocked his head clean off his shoulders! Legend has it that his head rolled down the hill into the sea … but we weren’t so sure.

After our walk, we found our bedrooms, made our beds and got settled in. We discovered that it is quite tricky to make a bed on your own and we needed to be reciprocal and help each other out. “Imagine how hard this must be for our mums!” I heard one child exclaim. 😂

We were all very hungry by dinnertime and our sausage and chips tasted good! We even had chocolate fudge cake for pudding. Then we were ready for our evening activity which was Orienteering. This was quite challenging as lots of the markers were very well hidden – we showed brilliant resilience and reciprocity working at this together.

By the end of the orienteering activity it was getting dark and so we headed back inside to get into our pyjamas and settle down for a story and a hot chocolate.

It was very exciting going to bed in a room with lots of friends. Some of us felt a little bit homesick and some found it very tricky to get to sleep but eventually everyone fell sound asleep and dreamt of the adventures they would have on Day 2.

In the morning, we had to get up and get packed as we only stayed one night. We had a delicious breakfast and then headed outside for our activities. With Anna, we learned how to light a fire if you are out in the wild. The children were very good at this and everyone successfully got a spark from their firestriker and kindled their own little fire with twigs and sticks.

We also had a go at some team games which required us to work together to achieve success. We had a yummy picnic lunch on the Leeson House lawn and then it was time to go.

A big thank you to Mr Price for all the hard work that goes into organising a residential trip and to Mrs Wallis and Mrs Harris for all their support on the trip. I’m really, really proud of all the children. It was AMAZING that everyone was there to share the experience and that everyone overcame their fears and stayed all night. That’s a big deal after the last few years when children haven’t been so used to sleepovers away from home. I think the children will have really grown from the experience and will have happy memories for a long, long time.

Mrs W

Here are just a few (!) of the photos ….