At the end of every school year, we celebrate the hard work of our students with a range of fun activities to kickstart the summer holidays, giving everyone a chance to relax and live adventurously!
This year, our Year 8 students enjoyed a super week of fun activities. On Monday they visited the Cotswolds Water Park, where they enjoyed an inflatable assault course. There were some highly impressive flips and jumps, with some students even bravely jumping off the tower into the lake.
On Tuesday, the students enjoyed team-building and there was some very impressive communication and collaboration amongst the students. After a quick swim, the students were chased by the ‘hunters’ in the woods. Jamie, Ernie and Loghan were particularly successful at evading capture.
On Wednesday at the beach, students chose between giant football or rounders, rounding off the day with a refreshing ice cream.
A massive ‘Thank You!' to all the colleagues who helped run these events.
Year 7 students also enjoyed a range of activities, from a Tour of Bristol to a phenomenal day out at The Making of Harry Potter. Want to find out what the muggles got up to? Read Gigi's account of the day here:
On the Tuesday of Activities Week, the muggles of the Third Form went on an adventure: a day trip to the J.K. Rowling-inspired buildings that hold the many secrets to the creation of the Harry Potter movies.
But first, we had the mystery of long drives... Four hours of excitement and messing around later, punctuated with a service stop for lunch, we were entering the vast warehouses that housed the tour we would be taking.
It was terrific, with a massive range of activities and spectacles, special effects, creativity and effort; the whole place was genuinely captivating.
The tour mainly consisted of little stalls and props that replicated or explained the most enchanting scenes in the movie, even having the corridors lined with outfits and props from prominent characters.
If this was not quite doing it for you, just around the corner, we could go and fly on a broomstick! Leading on from this area, we had to walk through the forbidden forest… which was crawling with humongous, fake spiders and dripping with magical mist.
Halfway through the tour, there was a café and gift shop where all sorts of wizard-ing souvenirs were on sale, a few creative activities and a café dotted with still more props and settings and merchandise - not to mention the nerve-racking dragon they presented to us only a few minutes later, with clever illusions and well-hidden screens portraying giant, loud, fire-breathing dragon stomping towards us!
The next half of the walk was just as great, with explanations and demos of how they created the goblins from Gringotts, as well as the actual bank itself.
This whole time, Sidcot students were supported by both our teachers and Warner Bros. staff, photos snapping left and right. And yet, there is still more; with a stroll down the diverse and colourful Diagon Alley, we walked up to the best thing yet... A huge, ridiculously detailed, Hogwarts. Not life-sized, sure, but still big enough to need two levels to come to eye level with any of the buildings.
The whole thing was like being dipped into the movie, or even the books - the creation precisely like the one we all know, as were the objects that litter the shelves of the end shop; wands of every size and make, teddies and figurines, jewellery and clothing, mugs and stationery, and a lot more.
The feat of replicating Rowling’s towering imagination was not overlooked; seeing the effort and time spent producing the unique structures that make up Harry’s magical world was truly touching.
At the end of Activities Week, Year 7 were transported back to 1599 they visited the living history site at Bullace Hill in Monmouthshire.
The setting was the beautiful 15-acre site, which has been restored to its medieval heritage including woodland, hay meadows, gardens and orchards. Their guide for the day was Master Morris, a Tudor tenant farmer who showed the students around his farm and introduced them to his wife, servants and the labourers he employs. Along the way they met carpenters, the trapsman, dairymaid, potter, haymaker, musketeer and many more people busy on the land.
Enjoying total immersion into Tudor life without any disruption from the modern world, it was a fantastic way for Year 7 students to end their busy week of activities!
