At this time each year, all pupils from Year 5 and 6 at Sherfield go away on a week-long residential study and activities trip. They stay at the Heatree Centre on Dartmoor, with the activities enjoyed informing the curriculum back in the classroom for the rest of the summer term. Here’s the report from Day 3 of this week’s trip. We look forward to seeing the pupils, and colleagues accompanying them, back on Friday afternoon.
Mr Meakin, Head of Prep
Heatree Day 3
We woke this morning to an unfamiliar sight – a bright yellow shape in the sky!! But would the sunshine last? For a moment, as we wended our way towards the source of the River Lemon, we thought it wouldn’t as there was a rather half-hearted attempt at rain, but then the skies cleared and we had the most glorious day.
We were all delighted to welcome Miss Carniel back this morning, who arrived by train in good time to join us for today’s activities, and we bade farewell to Mr Warriner who headed home about lunchtime.
Most of the day involved the children standing in various parts of the River, hurling corks down-stream to test the speed of the flow, dipping metre sticks in to test depth (when not twirling them like cheer-leaders’ batons) and attempting to hold tape measures straight in the fast-flowing water to measure width. We looked at the source/upper course and the mid-course before stopping for lunch. This was a slightly deeper part of the river and there were several pairs of wellie-boots filled to
the brim (spare socks and dry shoes in bags) and there was much discussion as to whether the waterproofs were, in fact, waterproof!
After a very “chilled” lunch (see Lucas!) we headed back to the coach which took us to the confluence of the River Lemon and the Teign and then we headed off towards Teignmouth itself for a bit of time on the beach and, of course, the ice-creams. These were duly eaten – and guess what? The heavens opened, so it was ice-creams in the rain after all!
Having had some down time on our arrival back we have been in full speed this evening with our Disco night. Miss Carniel, Mr Downer and I were highly entertained to see/hear the entire group performing the Macarena with some slightly unusual words: “hamburger, cheeseburger, lettuce and tomato, hey mashed potato”! Absolutely hilarious. The requests for music were also very amusing and somewhat random; from Let it Go and Happy to American Pie and Rocket Man!
A tired, but happy, bunch of children headed to bed, with the prospect of the views from Hay Tor tomorrow and our walk back via a quarry and the remains of an ancient village, to Heatree and our campfire tomorrow night.