The Wolds Federation Residential visit to France

Transcription

1 The Wolds Federation Residential visit to France March 2015 Five staff and thirty six, very excited, children from the Years Five and Six of our three federated schools (Middleton-on-the-Wolds; Bishop Wilton and Beswick and Watton) left bright and early (at 4:30 am!) on 23 rd March, for our biannual, residential trip to the Chateau Chantereine, in France. The aims of our visit were: A) To enable the children to understand more about, and experience some, French culture. B) To give the children a sense of purpose when learning French in school. C) To enable the children to hear French spoken by native speakers and to practice speaking the French they have learned with native speakers. Our journey incorporated a break for breakfast at Peterborough and then we arrived at the Eurotunnel by lunchtime. Thirty minutes later we were in France!

2 Our first visit, en route to the Chateau, was a couple of hours exploring Nausicaa a fascinating sea life and ecological centre in Boulogne-sur-mer. Following this, we arrived at the Chateau around 5pm. Once the usual fire drills and welcome meeting were finished, the children had dinner and went to their evening activity Scrapheap Challenge The next morning, after breakfast, we set off for Rouen. Once there we visited, and compared, the Gothic Roman Catholic Cathedral and the very modern Joan of Arc church, which was completed in 1979.

3 The children learnt about the effect The Plague had had on the citizens of Rouen at the time; they also learnt about the architecture and heritage of the town.

4 Then they had some free time to practice their French whilst shopping. After lunch we went to the Neufchatel cheese farm. We learnt about the traditional process of making the cheese (all delivered in French!) and looked around the typically French farm.

5 In the evening, back at the Chateau, the children s activity was Mini Olympics

6 On Wednesday morning we walked into Criel-sur-mer - the village in which we were staying. Once again the children were able to practice their language skills by shopping in the local Post Office and patisserie. In the afternoon we visited a chocolatier, where the children learned about the whole production process of chocolate, from growing it on the cocoa plantations, right through to the final products ready for sale. The chocolatier also produced some special chocolates for everybody to happily sample!

7 On return to the Chateau the evening activity for the children was Fencing and Problem Solving.

8 Thursday saw us in Arras, visiting the emotive Wellington Quarry site, where allied soldiers, from both World Wars, lived during the conflicts. Here, the children learnt about the conditions at the time for the soldiers, how they lived underground -the ingenious engineers had even managed to provide the soldiers with electricity and bathrooms! We viewed artefacts from the time, together with drawings, notes and carvings that the soldiers had etched into the walls whilst waiting to go into combat. Following this we continued on to Vimy Bridge and were shown around both the British and German trenches. The children learned about conditions for the soldiers at the time and viewed the impact all the shelling had had on the landscape. The day s excursions ended with a visit to the impressive Vimy Bridge Memorial Monument.

9 That evening, back at the Chateau, as a starter for their dinner, the children were offered the opportunity to sample frog s legs and snails! Most of them did try them and a lot of them really enjoyed them!

10 The final evening activity was the ever popular and eagerly anticipated disco! A great time was had by all on the last night of our visit!

11 On Friday, everybody was reluctant to leave, but it was time to return home. There were two stops made on the return journey, to eat lunch and for a comfort break. Everybody arrived home tired, but happy, in the early evening. This trip was a wonderful, valuable and memorable experience for our children and all our aims were met. Should anyone be considering planning a residential trip abroad, we have found the following things useful: Take DVDs to watch on the coach! Participating in a week long, residential, trip obviously entails enormous good will from the staff involved, as they, necessarily, are on duty twenty four hours a day which is tiring! Therefore it is a good idea to try plan your week away just before a school holiday!

12 Providers do need to communicate well with staff both before and during the visit. Pre visit checks should always be encouraged by the provider and carried out by the staff. It is a much happier experience for all concerned if the provider you choose pays as much attention to the staff s needs as they do to those for the children. After all, staff are generously giving up their own time to lead the trip and do require certain essentials i.e. separate bathrooms from the children, chairs to sit on whilst they are in the dorm corridors at night, waiting for all the children to go to sleep, before they can go to bed themselves and, definitely they need adult sized beds! During our last visit we did not allow the children to take any electronic games or mobile phones, but encouraged them to bring books and puzzle books for the journey. Also, for the first time, on this visit, in consultation and agreement with our parents, we did not allow the children to bring their own cameras. Instead, all the staff took a school camera. We downloaded each set of the photos taken onto each of our school servers on our return. The parents then sent in USB sticks and we copied all our photos onto to these for them. The result was, all the parents received 300+ good quality photos of our visit and the feedback was that they were all very happy with this arrangement. Finally, if anyone thinking of undertaking such a visit would like to have a chat beforehand with someone from our staff team we would be happy to meet with them! Sheranne Low Visit Leader Middleton-on-the-Wolds C.E. V.C. Primary School