5B residential – Day 1

Good evening (or more probably good morning when you are reading this),

We have had an absolutely packed day today. We left school this morning just before 10am and arrived at Gearstones at 12:30pm after a very enjoyable train journey. Following lunch at the lodge, we drove the 20 minutes to the Ingleton Waterfall Trail. The hot weather was slightly tempered at the start due to the tree cover as we walked through the wooded area. The trees eventually disappeared as we climbed and climbed and climbed into glorious sunshine. The resiliance of the whole class was impressive as they kept going, although the promise of an icecream at the top may also have helped.

On the way back down to Ingleton, we stopped for a paddle in the stream. The cooling river was very well received but even the wettest child soon dried out again before we finally got to the ultimate goal – fish and chips.

This evening, after an hour or so of free time, the class went on a walk in the fields around Gearstones. We allowed the children to guide us using their map reading skills to follow the footpath. As a backup, we also took Mrs Hawkhead! Unsurprisingly, the highlight of the walk for a lot of the children was finding animal bones. An altogether more unique moment took place when the whole class was silent for at least one minute as they looked for rabbits in an abandoned barn area.

Hot chocolate and biscuits finished off the evening at 10:45pm and the children are now in bed.

Tomorrow starts around 7am!