The last Coven day

Two lovely pictures of  “Tent City“ in the mist.

These were taken very early in the morning before our pupils woke up in their tents. None of your children were awake at this time.

After a rude awaking and a continental breakfast, tents have to be taken down. All the Y6 children should now know how to erect a tent and take it down again.

Over the week they have learned how to manage the tent (in the day and in the dark) and their belongings while having a decent night’s sleep.

Top sheet taken off and folded.

The main part of the tent which is never allowed to touch the top sheet. If the two connect you get rained on.

A Tent crew checked on a daily basis to make sure this would not happen and advise that tent pegs should be relocated. This was done by Cheslyn Hay Y6 pupils. And if they found a tent peg too stubborn to remove and relocate, they’d summon a teacher.

Now fold the fly sheet.

They were all wet and will have to be dried out indoors before they  re-emerge on the site again in April. 2007

We were the last campers at Larches Wood in 2006.

Turn the tent into a rectangle

Tent poles still need stripping down in this tent

Now fold the body of the tent into thirds and roll it up for storage or the next person’s use.

One of the hardest tasks is getting modern day sleeping bags back into their sleeve. I can barely do it as it requires a lot of physical effort and a bit of previous knowledge. We had to do this for the pupils with that type of sleeping bag.
Photo taken by Rebecca and Sophie.

After tent demolition, Pond Study for Groups F and G

Mr Bailey very charismatic in his approach to the task

Pupils soon “netting the pond”

Catching

Identifying

ID the pond life!

Meanwhile the tower is climbed

These recent pictures of the tower show just how hard a task this is. You can see that some of the footholds are really small and the ascent requires a lot of arm and leg muscle strength. Coming down is the easy bit once you have enough nerve to lean backwards just holding a rope and nothing else!

The final archery session

Top archers of the morning
Maid Marion and Robin Hood

THE TOP ARCHERS OF THE WHOLE WEEK WERE REECE DAVIS AND MELISSA WALKERDINE

The staff at the centre talk to our pupils about how they have developed over the week. This is how we felt you were when you came into the Larches Wood Centre ad this is what our staff think you have achieved. “You have come out of  Larches Wood with some  skills for life and we hope you might get turned on by one of the activities you enjoyed and develop that as an enthusiasm or even a vocation”

Team Building

Apart from giving pupils experiences in the outdoors, the week gives pupils an opportunity to work in teams.

The Government are very keen that  children should have skills in “Citizenship” which have a political and Social dimension.

Citizenship is taught as a subject in Key Stage 3 (40 minutes each week)

The teamwork dimension of this week is a platform the Social dimension of the Citizenship curriculum for Y6.

We do address Citizenship in various ways in Nursery, Infant, and Junior classrooms.

The Laches Wood week addresses a significant part of that agenda at a Primary School level, but to be honest the most important thing is that we gave your child a unique experience which we hope they will talk about and remember from childhood to adulthood.

It also addresses key curriculum Y6 areas in school. We  used the Wednesday trip to Carding Mill Valley to give pupils “hands on” experience as of part of the Geography Curriculum regarding Rivers and the water cycle. The pupils didn’t realise it was a Geography lesson as they were splashing about in the stream with measuring tapes and undertaking a 3 mile walk!

The week split the Y6 pupils into teams. They had to work as a team and each team gained points on a daily basis. The team awards and other certificates will be awarded next Friday assembly. Each team will be asked to nominate the most helpful and supportive team member next week in school.

I think this is a precious certificate to be given as it might be for many reasons:

• A pupil supporting another pupil who feels "home sick"
• A pupil supporting a team and giving leadership
• A pupil supporting another team member having difficulty with a task
• A pupil that keeps smiling when things arenÌt going to plan!

Team G receive medals with 1 point difference from Team A

One team has to win and it was just 1 point between first and second! Pictured above are the winning team G: Sarah, Jessica, Tom T, Lewis, Edward, Dale

Well done but actually, well done to all as all the scores were close which the Laches Wood Staff noticed.

Closeness = pupil commitment!

Team Scores

Will all these neatly packed bags and suitcase put on the coach on Monday, fit on the coach on Friday.

The School staff had brought many black bin liners  knowing that was not the case for the return journey

The pupils  had to get everything into the Marquee by  Friday 9.30 a.m  and then do their final activity.

From Marquee to Coach

They told me to pack everything in bin liners. I’m not sure that was a  good idea!

Apart from giving our Y6 pupils a unique “life learning” experience, it has been a privilege for  the three members of the Cheslyn Hay staff team, to  be at Coven  with  a fantastic group of youngsters.

I do thank you for entrusting your child to us for the week.

We have all come back tired but all had unique experiences – adults and children alike. Teachers and pupils alike

Martin Tibbetts

How did things get put onto the website from Coven?

Website/technical issues and how it’s done

I tried to make sure every pupil was photographed which is hard when I am attached to a group while wishing to photograph everything going on. Because I had to send 70+ photographs a day my Internet provider, when I use my lap top computer in another place, won’t allow me that band width.

The process worked like this.

• I took the pictures and downloaded them on to a laptop computer
• I created folders on the laptop for each day
• I did a camera download to the laptop PC
• I then edited the pictures and merged them into word files adding text
• I had to reconfigure my laptop pc to work in another location at Coven and use their broadband system
• Files were Ýthen sent to a free website - http://www.yousendit.com/ - which can handle for free huge files
• This was then picked up by our website author Chris Ratcliff in Yorkshire who the posts anythingÝmy staff or PTFA wish to be put on the website.
• Small files, all my staff/PTFAÝcan send to Chris Ratcliffe to be posted
• We did have a glitch with the Coven Thursday morning file which was huge and the ìYousenditî website was not working well
• Hopefully Chris has resolved that.