On the Friday morning we packed before breakfast ready for our departure. It's so weird. Everything fitted into our suitcases when packed last weekend to come, but now, for some reason, nothing seemed to fit in at all!

Some children assured us that they had finished packing after only 5 minutes, so we do wonder what their parents will find in their cases - either immaculately packed clothes, or . . . we'll leave you to find out, dear parents! Fin's parents are on to a huge winner seeing as he wore the same t-shirt all week - everything else can go straight back in the wardrobe. 

After attempting to pack, we cleaned our rooms, checked our drawers, wardrobes and bathrooms, to make sure that we weren't going to leave anything behind, ate the most wonderful breakfast and headed back on to the coach for the final activities...

Carisbrooke Castle. I was very disappointed to hear moans and groans about visiting a castle whilst on "holiday" - but once I had told Mrs Healy and Mr Fifield off for their pessimism, we entered the grounds with high spirits. We were very fortunate to receive an interesting talk from Henry all about the castle. The children were fortunate enough to touch the oldest cannon in England! After the talk we headed round the keep to look at the great views. The children enjoyed seeing Jigsaw and Juno the donkeys who help to work the well. 

Following the quick whistle-stop tour of the castle, we headed quickly back to the coach in order to catch our ferry. Well, I'm not sure why we rushed as we were delayed by several hours! 

All in all, despite the fire alarms and the return ferry, the children have had an amazing week. 

A few things not mentioned on the blog this week:

>Mr Mills did eventually get his round of golf in. Unfortunately, it was mini golf at Tapnell Farm. He was even more disappointed when Mr Fifield beat him hence the delayed update as he was still stropping. 

>We spent A LOT of time explaining the need to pack clean clothes for after the aqua park on Thursday. We knew a child would forget something so we went through the importance of this a multitude of times. I'm delighted to report that every child had managed to listen and pack the correct items of clothing. I'm even more delighted to report that the one person who failed was Mr Fifield. Mr Fifield, in his desperate excitement to jump in the water, had forgotten to remove his underwear. Suffice to say, things were a tad breezy for him in the afternoon, much to the amusement of the other adults. 

>Mrs Healy spent £10 of her own money trying to win plastic toys in the 2p machines. The entire group were sat waiting for her to finish. I have enrolled her in a Gambling Awareness course. 

>Miss Radford dropped her cheesecake on the floor on Thursday night. In a mad dash of panic, she grabbed the first piece of fabric she could find. Apologies to the parent who found their child's shorts were covered in a chocolatey mess.

The Year 6 residential trip has unfortunately come to an end but we hope the children have memories to last a lifetime. Throughout the week the children have conquered fears of seeing spiders at Amazon World Zoo; riding Extinction at Blackgang Chine; walking around the highest walls of Carisbrooke Castle, and listening to Miss Radford's dreadful, dreadful jokes. The children have mastered the art of water polo although perhaps not as well as the staff.

All members of staff cannot compliment the children enough: excellent behaviour, politeness at all times and smiling all week. Despite the humorous comments posted about the children throughout the daily updates, we really will miss them...a tad...maybe for a minute.

Many children were sad to leave because they felt the week had gone too quickly and wanted to do more fun and adventurous activities. However, all good things have to come to an end. A much welcomed end for one adult; she had not showered all week as she was saving it up for a nice bath when she got home. Happy bathing Mrs Healy!

The end.