Glaramara was the mountain chosen to challenge Year 8 on their residential last week. They rose to meet the challenge superbly and it was fantastic to see so many of them keen to reach the summit and really push themselves to achieve their goal. On the first night, after a speedy dinner at Borrowdale Youth Hostel, we went for an early evening ascent of Stoneycroft Ghyll and had huge fun getting sliding into great pools, giggling and getting soaked through.

The next day saw us driving up to Honister for the ‘Climb the Mine’ experience. This is a ‘via ferrata’ – a series of iron ladders, iron rungs, wire bridges and mini zip lines inside the old Honister slate mine. It was a fabulous activity which allowed every individual to push themselves to their limits. Each group tackled different sections of the ‘via ferrata’ and we were very impressed with everyone’s commitment and willingness to give it their all.

During the residential trip there were many opportunities to develop skills that will also be available in the classroom. The most beneficial is arguably decision making! There were many times during the day that each student had to work out the best way of clipping and unclipping the safety leashes. Although they were supervised for safety, there was still a lot of independence involved. It was a pleasure to see our students confidence grow throughout the day and there was some fantastic support given to students by their peers.

– Mr Platt, Mr Reedy, Mrs Roberts and Mr Cooke