Sholing Junior School

Achieving Together

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Year 4 Stubbington 2024

Stubbington 2024

We will be posting information about this year's residential trip to Stubbington on this page. This will happen each evening when we can get time - usually when the children have settled. The internet can be intermittent so we will be doing our very best to update this page when we can. 

Day 1

Well, all the children are having a wonderful time. May we take this opportunity to thank the parents for send such respectful and most importantly, tidy children. Their bedrooms are already absolutely spotless, much like they are at home we suspect! It is early days though!

 

When they arrived, they all gathered in ‘The Great Chamber’ to enjoy their induction. The typical day was shared which made all the staff tired just looking at it. Non-stop full on activities ahead.

 

The children were particularly interested in the food choices, especially breakfast – cabbage and custard. For those who don’t enjoy that option, a special request this week has been put in for a variety of cereals and a full cooked breakfast – or both (Mr Abbott).

 

This afternoon we all were going to take part in a rather blustery Stubbington Fox activity – a massive game of hide and seek. Due to strong winds however, the children took part in indoor games instead and dissected Owl pellets instead. Beautiful!!! The children loved it before familiarising themselves with the site. Mrs Warr, Mrs Byrne, Mr Abbott and Mrs Graham are all house leaders – a level of competition you have never seen before. The house competition will be a ferocious event with the winners to be crowned on Friday morning.

 

The children have been told that on Thursday night there will be the world famous ‘S Factor’ performance competition for the children – one of the guest judges will be a local ‘celebrity’ but more about that later.

 

We have a birthday girl in our midst. We celebrated this in the appropriate manner with a rather flamboyant rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’. A loud, boisterous effort from all on such a brilliant occasion!

 

We are now being treated to a wonderful wildlife show, then supper but it's not over yet!!! We're then off to a hide to see badgers and foxes if we're lucky!!!By then we will all be ready for bed…staff too!

 

The children are all desperate to do well and are being beautifully behaved. They are a real credit to you all.

Over and out!

Day 2

The children are up and about and have breakfasted well following their first evening at the Study Centre. Everyone slept well (eventually) and some were still sleeping like logs at 7:10am! 

The girls from Oak dormitory were lucky with their visit to the hide last night - spotting a fox and some deer. 

 

Another exciting day is ahead of us and the wind has really settled so the children are off to Earthquake amongst other activities today. They have already notched up some great achievements so far though and we are really proud of the way they are 'Achieving Together'!

 

Evening update.

The children have absolutely excelled themselves today. We have seen some incredible bravery, determination and teamwork as the children took on the famous Earthquake course, negotiating some tricky obstacles before attempting the lava leap. It has been wonderful to see how the children have worked together to encourage and support each other to succeed. Some children that were initially worried about heights managed to get to the top of the cargo net and all the teams reflected brilliantly on the skills they had developed. 

 

The day started impressively, with the Badger house currently leading the way with almost top marks for their dorms but with all the children setting a high standard. This is almost unheard of on a first night and the staff are anticipating an even better evening of sleep after such a busy day!

 

Alongside the Earthquake activity, the children took part in some really challenging and fun group puzzles (have you ever tried holding 31 tennis balls in one go?) and earned points to spend on materials. They then designed and built an egg holder to hold an uncooked egg before it was launched from a trebuchet. Incredibly, only a single egg was lost (out of 12), showing the level of teamwork and co-operation. 

 

The children have just finished their dinner and they are currently completing their daily reflective diaries before taking on a Piratical Whodunnit game! Another group of children will then have the chance to head to the hide, with the hope of seeing a badger or maybe more tonight. Fingers crossed...

 

Day 3 - a day of two halves!

 

After a really pleasing night's sleep by all the children, we all made our way to the local seashore at Lee-on-the-Solent in calm, bright and beautifully dry weather. Artificial rock pools were created in small groups which were then filled with a range of molluscs, seaweed and the odd crab. The children also created sandcastles and hunted (successfully!) for fossilised sharks' teeth. They managed to find a total of 4 - which might be a new Stubbington record for one visit. They then returned to their rock pools to find out what the creatures living there had been up to. 

 

Following another tasty lunch, the weather then started to become the polar opposite and the children have had the opportunity to deploy their wet weather gear and make the most of the study centre's drying rooms! They have done some impressive map reading to find the names of missing birds around the site - exploring the now quite boggy conservation area for the first time this visit. The weather was so wet that it was very difficult to take photographs of - so most of today's highlights will be beach-based as a result. 

 

The children are also setting up some small mammal hotels to see if they can find out what type of mice, voles or even shrews are residents of the conservation area. The children are currently planning what their hotel residents might need to enjoy an evening stay and will investigate what they have found (fingers crossed) in the morning. 

 

This evening sees the culmination of the song practices for the S-Factor competition with some exciting entries lined up. We are really looking forward to seeing whether the Badgers, Foxes, Kestrels or Owls have won the competition!

Day 4 

 

We have all awoken after a very settled night's sleep to what looks like a beautiful morning ahead and some of the boys are currently enjoying the lovely sunrise from their dorm windows.

 

The children are already excited to see if they have had any overnight visitors to their small mammal hotels. This is a classic Stubbington activity and will be a lovely way to finish a successful week. 

 

The children have really impressed us with what they are capable of when it comes to being independent and we would love to encourage them to continue this when they come home. 

 

Last night's song competition was a real success with some great performances from all the house teams (and some impressive dancing from Mrs Byrne too!). The Foxes came out on top and have earned some bonus points with their catchy version of 'We are the Foxes' (to the tune of 'We are the Champions').

 

We are looking forward to seeing who the eventual winners are later on today. 

 

For picking up, we are looking to be finished and away by 1:15pm so please see the parentmail regarding pick up times that the office is sending out soon. 

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