Outdoor Adventure at St. John Vianney – A Year 6 Journalist’s Report

In Year 6, we have completed the last part of the ‘Canvas Classroom’. We have been preparing with adventures at St. John Vianney School over the years. In Year 1 we had a ‘sleep-over’ in school, getting up really early to watch the sunrise. In Year 2, we had to whittle our own spoon and make a pottery dish. In Year 3 we had lessons for the day in a big tent on the field, in the middle of winter and with no handy toilets…yuk! In Year 4 we learnt to build shelters and tried to cook meals outdoors. Then, in Year 5 we camped out in the middle of nowhere, under our own shelters and making our own supper and breakfast. At least that was in the Summer!

This term, we reached the summit with our outdoor and adventurous residential in Weardale. We were terrified rock-climbing but everyone manged to get to the top. We loved paddle-boarding, but everyone got wet, as we rocked along. We were all ravenous at every meal. When we came back to school, we thought about all we had done, the fun and the learning. We realised that the reason we had been able to enjoy the residential so much, was because other people – behind the scenes – were taking care of all the necessities of life. We didn’t have to worry about where we would sleep, like we did when we had the sleep-over or when we had to put up our own shelters and tents. Other people were making all of our meals and cleaning up after us instead of us having to make everything for ourselves and clean up afterwards. Even the activities were planned and led by the rangers who knew what to expect and how to keep us safe, we were not doing our normal lessons, we were enjoying being outside!

We realised how lucky we were to be able to spend every moment of the time at the residential camp enjoying the adventurous activities… and that made us think how lucky we are all the time because our Mams and Dads and Nanas and Grandads and our carers and teachers make sure everything is done for us, so we can simply get on with learning and playing… without worrying about anything else… How lucky we are!