Last term our Year 7 students were invited to get to know one another and develop the skills they will need to do well at secondary school at the Year 7 residential.

I was one of the year 7 students that went on the residential. It was an early morning departure on Wednesday, 27th September. We travelled in two coaches to Kingswood Outdoor Education Centre in Kent.

After lunch we found out which lodge we were sleeping in and who we were sharing our dorms with. Then we split off into our groups and started the afternoon activities, which consisted of: team building, archery, abseiling, beach volleyball, rock climbing, nightline or rafting. These were the activities that each group did over the residential trip. My personal favourite activities were abseiling, volleyball and rafting! After dinner we hung out with our friends who may not have been in our group. We then got in our groups and set off to a campfire with the whole year group, which was lots of fun! 

Thursday morning we were up early, had showers and ate breakfast. Then the activities for day 2 began. Ayuba Alhassan said, ‘We did so many amazing activities such as abseiling, raft building, archery, rock climbing, fencing and last but not least nightline. My favourite bit was when everyone was cheering me on when I was about to make it to the top in rock climbing!’

After dinner we had this really fun activity where you got put into groups of 5 or 6 and you had to use cardboard to build a protective box around a water balloon in a period of time. Then the instructors dropped each group's cardboard box from high up to see if it would survive the drop. There were 3 groups that won as their balloons didn’t pop when dropped. Afterwards, we again went to the yurt to talk about the day, and this time the teachers chose the HERO from their group for the trip (and by the way, some groups had multiple stars). However, everyone on the residential was stars, it was just those students who got their name called out were the ones who had shown the HERO values in particular.

Friday, after breakfast we got to do our last 2 activities, then we had lunch and set off. All in all, the Year 7 residential was lots of fun and a great way to meet other students that I may not have met in my classes, and hope to go on another residential trip!

By Layla El Kadey, Year 7