Beechwood Primary School

Croft Farm Day 1 – Wednesday 29th April

The first day was a great success. The children loved exploring their rooms and knocking on their neighbours door. The competition for tidiest room had already begun with the girls unpacking and ensuring their clothes were in neat piles and the boys unpacking with their clothes in …… bundles. Once we had all enjoyed our special lunches that had been made for us by are anxious parents we were fuelled and ready to go.

The children were soon back outside being introduced to the JCA instructors who would be with them for the next 3 days. In no time at all, the ice was broken and the children had learnt a number of different ‘Repeat after me’ songs (which they could recite word for word by the end of the trip!) and had found their voices in true JCA style  – Roars of “Are you ready?”… “WE WERE BORN READY!”…. and ”Get it?” “ GOT IT!” filled the air! Group names sorted and team chants perfected, they were ready to tackle their first activity…

Our first activity was the climbing wall and the children were already impressing us with their fearless,  ‘can do’ attitude. Every child should be very proud of what they achieved during this activity as they all went further than they thought they would, with a large number reaching the summit.  Even the teachers did a great job of overcoming their fears and racing up the wall – Mrs Baskerville and Miss Lewis were treated by a rendition of “Let it Go” as they climbed – charming!

After all that climbing we were ready for our dinner, and had certainly earned it. The children’s (and Mr Pownall’s) eyes lit up when they saw the selection on offer, along with the vast amount of food they were served up and this was before pudding was revealed to them.

With a warm dinner in our tummies we ready to head out into the cold to play ‘egg protector’ which consisted of the children having to use a range of materials to protect their egg from breaking. Once they were all having fun and had completed this the children had a range of challenges to complete but the losing teams’ egg would be kicked around in its protector. Chaos ensued! It is quite incredible how long a group of children will happily play games and try to destroy each other’s eggs on a cold evening. As predicted, the game ended with egg flying everywhere and sadly no eggs were still intact.