Willow Class Residential – Day 1: Caves, Corn, Squishies and Water Slides!

What a brilliant first day we have had on our Willow Class residential!

This morning, we boarded the coach, waved goodbye to parents and set off on our adventure. The excitement levels were through the roof as children chatted, laughed and speculated wildly about what the next few days might bring.

Our first stop was Wookey Hole, where we ventured deep into the famous caves. The children were fascinated by the incredible stalactites and stalagmites, learning how these amazing rock formations take thousands of years to grow. We discovered that some grow at a rate of around 1cm every 100 years, which prompted one child to remark that if they stood still long enough, they too could become a cave attraction. The caves were both educational and awe-inspiring, with plenty of "wows" echoing around the chambers.

After exploring the caves, we enjoyed our packed lunches before heading into the 4D cinema to meet Harold and the Witch. There were laughs, jumps and surprises galore as the story came to life around us. The children thoroughly enjoyed the experience and couldn't stop talking about it afterwards.

At 1:15pm, we left Wookey Hole and began the journey to Mill on the Brue. It was during this coach journey that we encountered what can only be described as The Great Flatulence Mystery of 2026.

Miss B became increasingly concerned by a series of suspicious sounds coming from somewhere behind her seat.

"I think someone might have a problem," she said with genuine concern.

Children tried desperately to contain their laughter until the mystery was finally solved. The culprit was not a poorly child at all, but Zachary's farting squishy, which had been creating an impressive range of realistic sound effects.  The relief on Miss B's face was immediate.  Crisis averted.

Not long afterwards, as we passed a cornfield, Max gazed thoughtfully out of the window and, in what can only be described as his finest Somerset farmer accent, announced:

"Might not be cows... but there'll be corn."

Thank you, Max, for this agricultural insight. David Attenborough would have been proud.

Upon arriving at Mill on the Brue, excitement reached an entirely new level as the children discovered their rooms. There were smiles everywhere as friends unpacked and settled in. Following a quick welcome and debrief, it was straight into our first activities.

The Squirrels (Mr Briggs' group) tackled the water slide before taking on the obstacle course.  The Badgers (Mrs Walker and Mrs Healy's group) conquered the obstacle course before heading to the water slide.  The Moles (Miss B's group) began with tunnelling before joining the Badgers at the water slide.

The afternoon was full of laughter, teamwork and children pushing themselves out of their comfort zones. Watching the children encourage one another and throw themselves wholeheartedly into every challenge was an absolute pleasure.

The water slide was undoubtedly one of the highlights of the day. Whilst all the children enjoyed it, there was one particular pupil who may have found his calling in life. Chirag looked like he was having the time of his life. Every slide was met with huge smiles, excited laughter and an immediate desire to climb straight back to the top and go again. If enthusiasm could be converted into electricity, we could probably power the entire site until Christmas.

The obstacle course also revealed something quite unexpected.  It appears we have been sitting on an athletic secret all year. Noel absolutely flew around the obstacle course.

When we say he won, we don't mean by a few seconds. We mean he was so far ahead that the rest of the field probably needed binoculars to see him. Staff watched in amazement as he powered around the course with speed, determination and ease.

The biggest question of the day was: why has it taken us nearly a whole school year to discover this talent?  For ten months I have been teaching Noel, completely unaware that we had a future sporting superstar in our midst. Whether his future lies in athletics, obstacle racing or appearing on Gladiators, only time will tell, but he certainly impressed everyone today.

Dinner time brought with it the much-anticipated Zero Hero Challenge, where points are awarded for clearing plates and producing as little food waste as possible.  Before the competition had even begun, tensions were already running high.  In fact, Mrs Walker was horrified to discover that Mrs Healy was on her team.

Last year's Zero Hero Challenge has become something of residential folklore and, let's just say, Mrs Healy's performance did not exactly inspire confidence. Mrs Walker's reaction on hearing the team allocations suggested she was already preparing herself for defeat.

However, it appears the doubters were wrong.

Whether it was the delicious dinner, the fresh countryside air or the fact that everyone had spent the afternoon hurtling down a water slide, every single child absolutely smashed it.  Plates were cleared.  Meals were enjoyed.  Not a crumb was left behind.  In fact, some plates were so clean they looked as though they had already been through the dishwasher.

The result?

Every single team is currently tied in first place with absolutely zero food waste. That's right. Not a scrap. Mrs Walker's faith has been temporarily restored, although sources close to her report that she is already anxiously looking ahead to tomorrow's menu and praying that today's success was not a one-off. The pressure is on.

As if the day wasn't already full of surprises, the evening delivered another residential first.

To our knowledge, never in the history of school residentials has a child voluntarily requested an early bedtime. Yet at approximately 6:30pm, Ewan approached staff and asked the unthinkable: "Can I go to bed now?"

We checked the time.

We checked he wasn't feeling unwell.

We checked that he understood there were still several hours of fun, activities and excitement ahead.

He was absolutely fine.

He simply wanted to go to bed.

So a huge thank you to Ewan for attempting to relieve staff of their duties at 6:30pm. Sadly, the rest of Willow Class did not share his enthusiasm for an early night, but his efforts were greatly appreciated.

After medication time came one final moment of comedy. Poor Zachary was heading back towards his room when Mrs Walker absent-mindedly called after him:

"Bye, I love you!"

There was a brief pause.

Zachary froze.

Mrs Walker froze.

Everyone else tried (and failed) not to laugh.

Realising she had accidentally slipped into full "mum mode", Mrs Walker quickly corrected herself while poor Zachary looked unsure whether to respond, run away or pretend he hadn't heard. The look on his face was priceless and provided the perfect ending to a wonderfully memorable first day.

The children have been absolutely fantastic. They have shown enthusiasm, resilience, kindness and excellent manners throughout the day. We are incredibly proud of the way they have embraced every challenge and supported one another.

For now, Willow Class are settling down after a day filled with caves, witches, corn observations, mystery flatulence, water slides, hidden sporting talent, spotless dinner plates, accidental declarations of love and one very enthusiastic request for an early bedtime.

We can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

The Willow Class Residential Team 🌳🏕️😊

 

Willow Class Residential – Day 2

After what can only loosely be described as "a night's sleep", Willow Class emerged bright and early, ready for another exciting day of adventure. Well... most of Willow Class.

The famous Otter Room girls appeared to have mistaken bedtime for an all-night festival. While the rest of us were attempting to sleep, reports suggest there was whispering, giggling, more whispering, and then some additional giggling just to be safe. Exactly what was so funny at 12:17am remains a mystery.

The chief perpetrator of these overnight shenanigans appeared to be Muskaan, who somehow managed to be both responsible for the lack of sleep and its biggest victim. By breakfast, she looked as though she had completed three marathons and climbed Mount Everest before sunrise. At one point staff genuinely wondered whether she would survive the day ahead. Thankfully, a combination of determination, breakfast and sheer Willow Class resilience kept her going.

Meanwhile, Ranvir arrived with an equally remarkable story. According to official reports, he had fallen out of his bunk bed no fewer than four times during the night. Fortunately, he was sleeping on the bottom bunk. Following discussions with staff, it has been suggested that on his next residential they may need to provide him with either a cot or padded side rails. Sleeping should not be this dangerous.

After breakfast, the Badgers headed straight to raft building. It quickly became apparent that the girls (along with honorary girl-for-the-morning, Benjamin) were much better engineers than the rest of their group. Their raft was expertly constructed and stayed afloat beautifully, keeping everyone completely dry.

Of course, once there was an opportunity to jump into the river, staying dry suddenly became very boring. Lillie, Niamh, Vivaan, Joseph and Michael wasted no time launching themselves into the water with great enthusiasm.

A special mention again must go to Chirag, who spent a considerable amount of time proudly celebrating the fact that he had remained completely dry. As others splashed around, Chirag confidently made his way towards the bank, just millimetres away from safety and glory. Somehow, in a moment that can only be described as tragic comedy, he lost his balance and fell backwards straight into the river at the very last second. The celebrations stopped immediately.

Lunch was a huge hit with everyone. A full roast dinner was served and absolutely devoured by the children. Many returned for seconds and some even managed thirds. The highest praise came from Niamh, who announced that it was "the best meal I've had since I was first born." Sorry Mum!!

After lunch, it was the turn of the Moles and Squirrels to tackle raft building. One group consisting of Ewan, Jack, Isabella L and Ilariah confidently named their raft Titanic. Unfortunately, the name turned out to be less inspirational and more prophetic.  The raft promptly fell apart, sank and deposited all of its passengers into the river. When questioned, Isabella calmly explained that she knew it was going to sink all along, which raised the obvious question of why she'd agreed to call it Titanic in the first place.

The Moles then moved onto the Great Wall Assault Course, where there was everything to play for. Noel's impressive class record of 1 minute 58 seconds had stood proudly at the top of the leaderboard until today.  First, Ewan blasted around the course in 1 minute 55 seconds, taking over first place. Not long afterwards, Jacob somehow managed to go even faster, recording an incredible 1 minute 52 seconds and securing a new class record.

The final Challenge Track standings are:

🥇 Jacob – 1 minute 52 seconds
🥈 Ewan – 1 minute 55 seconds
🥉 Noel – 1 minute 58 seconds

Who knew Willow Class had so many elite athletes hidden amongst them?

Meanwhile, the Squirrels and Badgers headed off for ziplining (the Moles get their turn tomorrow morning). It was fantastic to see children facing their fears and hurtling down the zipwire. Particular praise goes to Olivia, Max, Ewan and Zachary, who were all extremely nervous but showed tremendous courage and completed it anyway. Not wanting to miss out on the fun, Mrs Healy and Mr Briggs also had a go. There is some concern that they may have enjoyed it even more than the children.

Throughout the day, there was also the fiercely competitive Crate Stack Challenge. In the Moles group, the winning team was Ewan and Jacob, who managed an impressive 11 crates.  However, the overall winners were Michael from the Badgers and Zachary and Daniel from the Squirrels, who somehow reached a towering 12 crates. The best part, according to many children, wasn't actually building the stack. It was watching the instructors casually kick the crates away afterwards and leave everyone dangling dramatically in mid-air.

Before dinner, the Badgers enjoyed grass tobogganing, which involved racing at alarming speeds down a hillside on plastic sledges. The activity was a huge hit, although many of the children were already seasoned professionals by this point. Since arriving, they have spent almost every spare moment free-rolling themselves down the hill at every opportunity. In fact, the toboggans simply made the process more efficient. Why walk sensibly down a slope when you can repeatedly throw yourself down it and arrive dizzy at the bottom? Willow Class may never know. The official grass tobogganing was certainly faster, but we're not convinced it was any more enjoyable than their self-invented version!

Dinner was another enormous success. Pizza and wedges were quickly demolished before everyone tucked into ice cream roll for dessert. Once again, very little food remained.  This brings us to the Zero Hero Challenge from yesterday. Much to Mrs Walker's delight, Mrs Healy once again rose to the challenge and ensured not a single scrap of food was wasted. Will tomorrow finally earn us a place on the elusive Zero Hero Board of Delight? The suspense is almost unbearable.

After a quick shower (and by "quick", we're still not entirely convinced some children actually got wet), it was time for the disco. Remarkably, all of the children who had spent the day telling us how exhausted they were suddenly found a completely new source of energy. The tired faces disappeared, the dance moves appeared, and Willow Class danced the evening away with huge smiles on their faces.

After the disco came one final challenge: the much-anticipated Room Inspection. The children were given just 20 minutes to transform their rooms from organised chaos into inspection-ready masterpieces. Beds were hastily made, suitcases were zipped shut, stray socks mysteriously disappeared and panic spread through the corridors as the adults prepared to conduct a military-style inspection.

Entering one of the girls' rooms, we were immediately greeted by a beautiful fragrance. For a brief moment, we were convinced we had discovered the freshest room in the entire centre. However, after further investigation, it transpired that someone had accidentally sprayed a generous amount of Isabells B’s hair mousse instead of body spray. The room smelt wonderful, but there was also a suspicious amount of sticky residue lingering in the air.

Moving on to one of the boys' rooms, we were utterly impressed with Zac, Hridhaan, Benjamin, Jacob and William. Beds perfectly made? Check. Clothes neatly folded? Check. Floor spotless? Check.  Everything appeared absolutely perfect.

Until...

Chief Inspector Walker's eagle eyes spotted a suspicious rucksack.  Behind it lurked a hidden bin overflowing with sweet wrappers and snack packets. They thought they could fool us.

Mawahahaha!

The evidence was uncovered, the mystery solved and justice was served.

Despite a few interesting discoveries, it is safe to say this was quite possibly the tidiest room inspection Willow Class has ever produced. Every room had clearly made a huge effort and the standards were exceptionally high. The results will be announced tomorrow, but one thing is certain: Chief Inspector Walker was suitably impressed.

As Day 2 comes to an end, we've seen rafts sink, records broken, fears conquered, crates stacked, hills rolled down, dance moves unveiled and enough food eaten to feed a small village.

Here's hoping the Otter Room girls let everyone get a little more sleep tonight... and that Ranvir manages to stay in his bed for the entire night! 🛏️😂🌊🚣‍♂️🎉🏆