News

Our competition winners enjoy their trip.... Watch out Whitby!

Stocksbridge Junior School:

A fantastic adventure in Whitby 26th - 28th November 2014

 Regular readers may remember that we held a competition about 18 months ago to celebrate the launch of this website. We asked for all types of schools to fill in a competition entry form and submit their names into a prize draw. The prize being a free 2 night / 3 day all-inclusive residential visit for 30 pupils + staff to one of our many school trip residential locations. To cut a long story short Stocksbridge Junior School from Sheffield WERE our lucky winners.....

After careful thought, and after looking through the varied programmes and locations available, the teaching staff decided on WHITBY as their destination of choice to take part in the incredibly popular Whitby Explorer Package. Basically the trip would cover a 3 day / 2 night period and would include travel, accommodation, meals and a whole series of outdoor and indoor activities suitable for key stage 2 pupils. When the school announced the trip to parents it became so over subscribed that the lead teacher Mrs Ross contacted us to ask if we could provide the trip for 55 pupils plus staff. No problem we said, and the original prize of 33 free places meant that the group simply made up the difference.

Whilst it could be said that November isn't recognised as the most popular month to take a group away, in actual fact low-season school trips (October to March) are becoming more and more popular, the main reason being that our all-inclusive prices can be kept down, and an almost identical visit can be arranged outside of the high season, higher priced May/June/July weeks when the additional costs involved can prove to be a barrier to some parents being unable to allow their child to take part. We find that low season trips generally attract more pupils and are thus more inclusive for the class or year group.

Back to our story...! The accommodation and activities for the Stocksbridge trip were based at YHA Whitby, one of our most popular partner venues and set in a stunning location adjacent to Whitby Abbey, high above the town looking out to sea. Whitby truly is a fantastic location for children to visit, the historic buildings and amazing seascapes provide a real contrast to the town or city from which they may come.... huge skies, panoramic sea views and the sounds and smells of a still busy port all go towards providing a real contrasting location..

The children arrived on day one following a comfortable coach journey and were soon busy, out and about, having fun and learning about the envirorment in a hands-on and exciting way. Exploring rockpools, crabbing, making sand sculptures, searching and finding fossils,... these were just a few of the amazing activities enjoyed by all. One excited explorer even found a piece of volcanic lava as she searched the beach. Following activities, each afternoon the group would make their way back up to the cozy and warm hostel to enjoy their fantastic evening meals and then launch into yet more evening activities within the snug and warm hostel environment.

Mrs Ross, reported that both staff and pupils had had a brilliant time and commented on what a great and helpful team the staff at Whitby had been. The children loved the hostel particularly the comfy bedrooms and they also loved the tasty food especially the cooked breakfasts.

Every single aspect of the trip was a HUGE SUCCESS and the great news is that Stocksbridge are coming with us again in 2015 and returning to Whitby.