Year 7 Camp 2021

Year 7 Camp 2021

A great time was had in the Year 7 Camp 2021.  We split the trip as we always do with half of year 7s attending Monday – Wednesday, and the other half Wednesday – Friday.

Camp 1 arrived at lunchtime on the Monday and quickly settled into their tents.  After some lunch we played some sports and explored our surroundings.  The first evening we played an excellent game of man hunt, where teams have to go and hide in the woods and the others have to go and find them.  It’s always a popular game and some students were exceptionally good at hiding this year!  That night, students tucked themselves up into their tents and had a good torch lit chatter until they fell asleep.

The morning staff were slightly alarmed by some of the students waking up at 4.30am (they must have been VERY excited for their second day at camp!).  After a yummy breakfast we got ready for a walk along the river valley to look at the beautiful woods.   It was lovely to see lots of the pupils helping each other through muddy sections, or over fallen trees. 

In the afternoon we had our activities carousel, which consisted of cray fish fishing, rounders and marshmallow toasting.  There were some particularly big cray fish caught in the afternoon and some very brave pupils had a go at picking them up. 

That evening we had a visit from the ice-cream van, and we had some delicious 99s and lollies.  Some pupils chose to spend their £2 pocket money on a big bag of jawbreakers!

For dinner we had a BBQ, and many of our pupils helped to cook the food and we were impressed with how skilled they were in helping us prepare the food.

Mr Dalby introduced us to the fun game of snapchat challenge, whereby pupils had to work in teams to create images based on topics given to them.  The staff then gave them scores out of 10 and declared an overall winner at the end.  

On the Wednesday morning all the pupils were looking a little tired, and we had a nice morning slowly packing up and enjoying the sunshine. 

Camp 2 arrived on Wednesday lunchtime and quickly got settled into the camp.  They were very quick to invent and play their own games – somebody brought a pack of UNO, which was very popular. 

That evening we played a few rounds of manhunt and the pupils enjoyed hiding in the woods and seeing if they were found.  At bedtime that evening (just as everyone was going to sleep) a muntjack deer wondered into the woods where we were sleeping.  Muntjack deer have a call very similar to a ‘strangled screaming duck’, and as you can imagine, it caused a fair amount of hysteria amongst the campers, until we explained what is was and why it was making so much noise.

The next morning, we went on our walk but took a slightly different route than camp 1.  We went to a site where some limestone was exposed, and we were able to look for fossils.  Despite our best effort we did not find any t-rex bones, but we spotted some shell fragments and parts of ancient coral. 

In the afternoon we did our activities carousel.  Again a mixture of cray fish fishing, rounders and marshmallow toasting.  Some of the pupils helped the staff warm the lunch rolls on the fire.  Some rolls ended up a little black, and it was commented that they may have been more useful as a rounders bat rather than a lunch item.  Early evening, the ice-cream van came round again and everyone enjoyed a frozen treat.  He really was a super man and was very generous with his toppings.

We had a BBQ for dinner on the second night, and yet again the pupils stepped up in helping us cook and prepare the food.  We had some very full tummies that evening!  Before bed we played the snapchat challenge game and the pupils were so inventive in the images they created.

We had a much earlier night on the second night (and thankfully the deer stayed away).  The next morning we all had a slow breakfast and the students helped start to pack away the camp before the coach came to pick them up.

We are so grateful here at Clarendon, for having staff who are so willing to give up their time to support our students enhanced enrichment programme.  Our thanks go out to Mrs Raynes (Camp Leader), Miss Penny, Mr Dixon, Miss Bailey, Mr Clark, Mr Dalby, Mr Worsfold, Miss Richards and Miss Sheppard.  Our thanks also go to our admin and finance team, and the site staff who helped get us there with the right equipment.