Residential School Trips

Hooke Court 1st – 3rd October 2008
Beaminster 
Dorset DT8 3NX  

Itinerary                                                     

Hooke Court Wednesday 1st October

We arrived at 11:30 after a scenic journey which became more entertaining the closer we got to Hooke and the narrower the Dorset roads became.  On arrival the children saw their dormitories for the first time and set to making their beds.  Let’s just say some children were more accomplished than others.
The afternoon’s activities saw the children pair up and support each other around the low ropes course, the object being to help their partner cross the various obstacles without touching the floor, the children rose to the challenge and supported each other well.
The children really enjoyed the orienteering, racing around the site, for the letters before trying to solve the anagrams they had found.  Let’s just say we need to do some work on British trees and plant names when we get back to school.
Our first ever night walk was fantastic.  Armed with torches and wrapped up warm we set off to Hooke Woods in search of deer, foxes and UFOs!  A lone deer was spotted before being scared off by the noise, no foxes but was that a UFO in the trees?  On closer inspection there in front of us was a wooden structure suspended in the trees looking like a cross between a spider in its web and a spacecraft from another world.
It was a lovely clear evening and without the glare from Bristol’s lights the children were amazed by the amount of stars they saw in the sky.  Well done to James who was able to tell his group all about them.
Exhausted after a fun-packed day the children went quietly to bed looking forward to shelter building and bridging the moat.  Bring on the sunshine. 
Some quotes from the children’s reflection diaries written this evening:
Callum: Personally I thought orienteering was cool because you worked as a team.
Kara: I was laughing so much on the low ropes I didn’t even know I was learning, it was so much fun.
Dan : One of the best days of my life.
Louise: I particularly like staring up at the beautiful stars shining in the night sky.  Lovely.
Michael: Hooke Court is brilliant.

Low Ropes	Make the Bed
Spaceship	Tree

Hooke Court Thursday 2nd October

A good night’s sleep for everybody ensured the day started on a positive note and meant the teachers were in a good mood.  The day was spent learning all about working as a team and qualities required for leadership.
The children were split with one group spending the morning visiting Hooke woods and Building Shelters in the morning whilst the others learned the skills to Bridge the Moat.   Following lunch the groups swapped activities. 
The aim of shelter building is to build a shelter from scavenged wood large enough to fir their tribe in.  By working together the children built six individual and impressive structures.  Work also took place on qualities of leadership and how each tribe could elect a leader.  Meetings were held and leaders were elected and led their groups through various tasks.
Bridging the Moat is one of the hardest challenges at Hooke Court, with so many new skills needing to be learned in order to complete the task.  Building tripods, learning to tie new knots, building rope bridges and transporting a log across 10m of water really tested the children.  Our tutor Jill really got the children to think about their own qualities and how they fit into a team and work together.  Well done to all the groups who rose to the challenge.
At the end of the evening we all gathered together and celebrated what a fantastic day we’d had and thought how much we had discovered about ourselves and each other.

Once again here are some quotes from the children to give you a taste of their experience:
Lizzie: Teamwork is the most important thing and even if you don’t get on with everyone in your team, it doesn’t mean you should not include them.
Eva: If you want to succeed then team work should be your first choice.
Edward: Care for each other and have fun, fun, fun.
Katie: The thing that I enjoyed most was that I learned that I am more confident than I first thought.
Luke: I hope I can come back to Hooke Court one day even if I’m an adult.  It’s brilliant, fantastic, amazing.
Matthew: I learned not just to think about myself but consider other people’s ideas and that you’re stronger as a team.
Mitchell: I think I’ve learned how to properly learn as a team and let other people get their point across.

Great Moat	Great Moat
In the Woods	Shelter

Hooke Court Friday 3rd October

Another good night’s sleep followed by beans on toast and cereal set us all up nicely for our morning of rocket building, even the sun decided to join us for the morning.
Our session commenced with a science lesson testing our knowledge of forces and motion and introducing us to the physics which would propel our rockets high into the sky.(hopefully).  The children then worked in teams of 5 to build and their rocket.  More super evidence of collaboration resulted in every team finishing their rocket before the launch deadline.  Mr Sibley once again gave the children 10 out of 10 for the session.
At the launch site children waited with a great sense of anticipation for their rocket to be launched.  We all watched amazed as each rocket soared in to the air high above us before the second charge caused the parachute to unfurl helping the rocket drift back to earth or the trees in many cases.
It has been a fantastic and very worthwhile 3 days and all of the children can be very proud of their efforts.  Many of them have grown in confidence and learned valuable skills which we will continue to build on back at school.
A big thank you to all the children for their excellent behaviour, efforts and the enthusiasm they have shown over the last few days.  They helped make the trip lots of fun for all the staff.  Also a big thank you to Mrs Porter, Mrs English and Mrs George who gave up their time to help ensure the children had such a good time.

Some more quotes from the children:
Jordan: It was good watching the rockets go really high in the sky.
Connor: I liked building the rockets and working in a team with people I don’t normally get along with.
Olly: It was building the rockets and seeing all the different designs.
Ottis: I liked bridging the moat best because I learned lots of new techniques to solve the challenge.
Lucy: I enjoyed working in teams together and I got to know lots of new people I didn’t really know before.
Eva: It was still educational but was fun learning new things in different ways.
Olivia: It was a good experience to be away from my family.  Hooke Court was a good chance to work with other people and to learn new skills.
Bethan: It was the best bit of school I have ever experienced.

Making Rockets	Making Rockets
Jill setting up!	The Group