Regents Review Spring '18

The Regents Review Spring 2018

GENERAL NEWS

Ski Trip 2018 We left for France at 2 pm on Friday 2nd March. We certainly didn’t expect to leave King Edward Avenue in snow. We left on time, but the journey did take longer than anticipated, as there had been a huge dump of snow in the French mountains, thanks to the “Beast from the East”. The area we skied was the Serre Chevalier valley in the southern French Alps. We met our ESF ski teachers at the mid station at an altitude of 2000m for our first day’s skiing. The conditions were perfect with fresh snow and blue skies. The first morning was spent on the beginners’ slopes practising simple turns and snowplough stops, before we were safe enough to go on the more difficult slopes at the top of the mountain. Progress was really quick though, and by day 3 all groups were skiing blue slopes and by day 5 everyone was able to ski some of the intermediate slopes from the top of the mountain to the foot of the valley. The views we had of the mountains were spectacular all week with so much snow and great visibility. Lydia Barucka was awarded top skier for the week. She achieved the ESF silver award with merit for her controlled parallel turns and all round good skiing. Joshua Benson-Armer was also awarded the silver award.

There were Wally of the day awards for students on the slopes. Gary Hearn was the first skier to be voted a wally for skiing into numerous other students, Joshua Thomas also picked up the award for skiing into a piste sign and removing it from its position and Jonny Nutt won the coveted award for dropping one of his ski poles off the chair lift on the first run of the day and skiing all day without it. He was known by the group as “One Pole Jonny” for the rest of the week. Our hotel was full board, but we ate one night in the local pizzeria and also had evening entertainment including bowling, a spectacular fire work display, a torch light procession by our ski instructors, sledging and bowling. It was a great week in the Alps. Students not only learnt how to be competent skiers, but experienced the mountain environment and to live and learn as part of an outdoor team. I really enjoyed being with the Regents Park ski team and look forward to running the visit again next year. If your child is interested in being part of the 2019 Regents Park ski visit please email info@ regentspark.southampton.sch.uk or ask your child to speak to Mr Brown. We will be visiting the French Alps again in March 2019. Many of the students commented that it was the best school trip that they have ever been on!

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