Dear Parents and Carers
It’s been Bushcraft this week, a trip for over 100 Year 7s to live rough in the woods. I visited them on Tuesday to see how they were getting on and disappointingly it was all rather civilised, I had half expected to find them roaming through the woods, hunting and gathering and living wild. As it happened, they were eating a breakfast of sausages, fried potato and beans, along with cornflakes, before heading off to activities. I enjoyed the axe throwing (so much harder than I thought it would be) and the archery before heading back to camp for pizzas cooked on site in their pizza ovens.
The afternoon started with the kids watching two massive salmon fish being cut up (pretty middle class version of rough living) before some volunteers crunched their way through the salmon’s eye balls. I spoke to a lot of the students who were enjoying spending time with their mates and doing activities with each other, which is what it is all about. The mocked up plane crash caused a rush. I was with the boys’ group as they rounded a corner and found an ‘injured’ Mr Turner lying on the track and several ‘survivors’ strewn around the plane wreckage. I would say the efforts to rescue their comrades were on the clumsy side. Interest in Mr Turner quickly faded as they saw the rest of the ‘plane crash’ and he was kicked onto a tarp and dragged out of the way. The rescue of the other 5 ‘survivors’ came close to actually injuring them as corners of the stretchers were dropped in haste as kids dragged their fallen friends to safety. If your child went on Bushcraft, I hope they enjoyed the trip. No doubt they came back tired and very smelly, but do let them know, Newquay in Year 9 is far more civilised. I would like to thank Miss Booth for arranging and leading this trip, and all the staff who supported; Mrs Agar, Miss Binning, Mr Skelley, Mr Turner, Mr Gardner and Mr Hibbard.
In other events, yesterday was our mock election in school. All the year groups on site were invited to vote for one of the parties standing locally as we tried to bring democracy to life for them at break and lunch. In most cases they felt democracy was getting in the way of carb loading in the canteen to be honest, but to our relief election fever set in right at the end of break and lunch when they should have been returning to class. At that point they felt very strongly about their rights to representation, and spent a long time considering their options on the ballot paper too. In a similar pattern to events overnight, Labour won the school vote and the Conservatives did very poorly.
Best wishes
Andy Perry
