At Stanway Primary, the children in Year 6 attend a residential visit to a PGL centre in Lincolnshire: Caythorpe Court. They spend two nights and three days away from school, traditionally during the last week of the first half term of the summer term.

The centre offers a range of activities that cannot be offered at school and which allow for learning to take place in a variety of contexts and environments. The programme of events that the children take part in is the ‘outdoor and adventure’ option. It offers children the chance to work independently and as part of a group through a variety of challenges such as abseiling, orienteering and rock climbing.

The children set their own targets to achieve during the week, but the nature of the activities also allows for a variety of objectives from the National Curriculum to be met, including:

Physical Education (KS1 and 2), purpose of study – ‘Opportunities to compete in sport and other activities build character and help to embed values such as fairness and respect.’
Physical Education (KS2)  ‘Pupils should be taught to take part in outdoor and adventurous activity challenges both individually and within a team.’

Wonderful Week of Adventures

Due to the pandemic, our Year 6 children were unable to attend the planned residential trip. Instead a Wonderful Week of Adventures was created to help mark the end of the children’s journeys at Stanway Primary School…

The week started with the visit from StreetSide Gaming Van. The children all enjoyed their 45-minute slot and were really well behaved. Below are some quotes from the children about the session:

Sam said, ‘It was sensational!’

Aidan said, ‘It was the best thing I’ve ever seen!’

Finlay said, ‘It was good for safety and knowing what was available for the different ages.’

Coby said, ‘It had good FPS (frames per second)!’

Unfortunately, Kenny the rapper was unable to attend on Tuesday, but the children spent some time preparing messages for the leavers’ videos and in the afternoon, we watched Wonder (the film of the book we read earlier this term).

On Wednesday, the children enjoyed different sports and games on the field. There was also a great game of football between the two classes on the astro pitch. The children ate their lunch out on the grass with music in the background. Of course, the ice cream van, mid-morning, was a highlight of this day!

Thursday was a day full of little Lewis Hamiltons! The children absolutely loved racing round the tracks. They were brilliantly behaved and got loads out of the day!

Friday saw the children enjoy three outdoor activities: high ropes, adventure course and kit-karts. In the evening, we all watched the Lion King film and enjoyed the takeaway pizzas!

What a wonderful week indeed!