Calshot 2023 – Liss: Year 6

It was a very busy first full day at Calshot for the entire group. Although the weather forecast wasn’t great, we were fortunate that any significant rainfall only occured once the day’s activities were over.

For breakfast the children tucked into sausages, pancakes and cereals (not all at the same time). From there the pupils went off to a range of activities which included kayaking, sailing, skiing and cycle skills. The feedback at the end of the day tended to focus on how much the children had enjoyed the challenge of sailing although it was highly amusing to witness some of their attempts at the technical language of sailing.

For lunch, there were the usual jacket potato and pasta options as well as various meat and veggie slices along with herby potatoes!

During the afternoon, other groups of pupils went kayaking while the morning sailers and kayakers spent the afternoon taking part in epic engineering, skiing, climbing or cycle skills in the velodrome.

Dinner was a choice of a chicken or veggie curry before the groups went off to either egg drop or rushin rockets. By the end of the day there were lots of very tired children and staff. In the vast majority of cases, we didn’t need to ask the children to turn their lights off and some were already asleep. Wednesday promises to be another full and busy day.

It was a very busy first day at Calshot (as always) with lots to take in and a busy afternoon of activities.

We arrived just after 11.00am and moved into our rooms. The children were then given a briefing by Richard, our lead instructor, took a fire drill and were then given a tour of the Calshot site.

After a packed lunch, it was time to start the activities. All the groups were in the main hanger which was actually a relief as it was as windy as any of the staff members could remember. The children were involved in any two of the following: Climbing, skiing, ringo and hanger orienteering. It was the view of the staff that the children did very well especially in the skiing where very few people fell over.

Dinner was just before 6.00pm and the children had a choice of four options which included a chicken pasta bake, a veggie pasta bake, jacket potato with toppings and plain pasta with toppings.

After dinner, the children’s evening activities were either egg drop (only one group managed to avoid breaking their egg) or rushin’ rockets. Even though it was only the first day, there were some pretty tired children and it was completely quiet by 10.00pm.

Today the sailing and kayaking begins!