Year 9 Camp 2010

School Camp has been a favourite trip for over 40 years at Sale Grammar schools. This year 186 students and 38 staff spent a week enjoying team and personal challenges. After a change of location in 2009, the staff chose to return to the new site of Walesby Scout Camp. The fantastic venue is situated deep in the legendary Sherwood Forest surrounded by 250 acres of land.

The superb on-site facilities and accommodating, friendly staff provide for a thoroughly enjoyable camping experience for the students, many of whom may not have experienced the ‘back to nature' style of living before! It was a busy itinerary over five days. 

On Monday the whole group spent three hours at the wonderful Ponds Forge Leisure Centre in Sheffield. The activities ranged from diving, trampolining, ultimate fitness to spinning classes - enough to tire them out for the first night! Upon arrival they faced their first team challenge as they had to put up their own 6 person tents. The evening was completed with a fabulous professional juggling show which saw Miss Watson playing a great ‘Debbie McGee' role!!

The events on day two were all based on-site as Sunshine Games provided a wide range of inflatable challenges including the highly amusing rodeo bull and surf simulator. One highlight was the sumo suits as Mr. Crampton and Mr. Taylor fought each other in the grand finale! Adrenalin Jungle set up the Laser Tag course on a large patch of grassland and also in the surrounding woodland and the students loved pretending to be a crack team of specialist forces! The evening saw a resurrection of an old camp favourite - Mr. and Mrs. Walesby - it was good fun watching the convincing gender impressions of Liam Dodd and company!

Days three and four were truly action packed. Students followed a very busy rota of high octane activities. At Lock Well Hill students were thrilled with the dirt buggies and quad bikes; white water rafting at the NottinghamWater Centre was equally adrenalin inducing; mountain biking in the Sherwood Forest followed 3 different routes; finally, the scout centre provided a wide range of activities including rafting, kayaking, zip wire, 45ft climbing wall, rifles and archery. Mr. Davies and Mr. Philipson designed a great Treasure Hunt which challenged the students to explore the 250 acre site fully.

Wednesday afternoon was of course football time as the whole of camp supported the English. This followed a hog roast feast, BBQ and face painting organised by the enthusiastic Miss Langford. Wednesday nights entertainment saw the various talents of our students put their best foot forward. Surabhi Desai and Rebecca Young proved to be overall winners with some incredible singing and dancing. The final evening gave the students a chance to dance the night away at the disco. Mr. Beech, Mr. Bridge and Mrs. Adshead cooked a fantastic BBQ with superb local produce provided by Goff's Butchers.

On Friday morning the whole of camp had an half an hour lie in and then it was a frantic 3 hours of decamp activity before returning home. Mr. Price-Uden, camp leader, was very impressed with the approach of the students and he would also like to extend his thanks to the staff who gave so freely and willingly of their time. Here's looking to next year when Miss Langford takes over the reins, but we think Mr. Price-Uden will still be around somewhere - just to check.