As part of our ‘Return to School Plan’, over the last two weeks every child in our school has attended a whole day session at the Weardale Outdoor Education Centre. The purpose was to give children the time and space to rebuild friendships, to embed their Learning Zone’s Super Power, to have fun and to benefit their emotional well-being and mental health following lockdown.
We are planning a second visit which we had hoped to do in July, however, by the time our funding was secured we had missed the boat and the dates are now booked for September and October.
In order to avoid putting additional financial pressure on parents at this challenging time, we have funded the trips by fundraising and asking for donations from local businesses and organisations.
We were totally blown away by the generosity of William Cook (the foundry in Stanhope) who fully funded half of the total amount required for the two trips. We are also extremely grateful to Stanhope Methodist Church, St. Thomas’ PCC, Eastgate Church Committee, RE Lighting and Stone Valley Interiors. There were also a number of other businesses who kindly supported our project but who have asked to remain anonymous – we thank you all.
We have had tremendous feedback from children, parents and from the centre staff too. In fact, the children are still talking about their adventures!
We have a fantastic video available on our website along with photos and quotes for you to enjoy.
We all look forward to our next visit.
Mrs D Cross
Head Teacher
Opal Learning Zone
Ruby-Bec – “It was so much fun. I loved the fishy and shark game.”
Freddie – “We had cake for my birthday, and we had a fire. It was good.”
Amethyst Learning Zone
Lana – “I loved the obstacle course because we had to climb through all of the muddy tyres.”
Jack K – “It was the best trip ever. I hope we can go again soon.”
Sapphire Learning Zone
Ella – ‘My favourite activity was the nightline because it was challenging and fun because you were blindfolded, but you had a rope to follow.’
Tommie – ‘I worked the hardest at the planks because we worked together moving the planks along.’
Scarlett – ‘I used my superpowers on the scavenger hunt. I found the different animals by listening to others and working together.’
Ruby Learning Zone
Aimee – “The trip taught me how to use good fellowship and help others.”
Imogen – “The trip was really great and you got to try things you didn’t think you would try, like climbing up the slippery log!”
Poppy – “I built up my confidence about doing stuff because everyone was there for me.”
Leo – “I liked when we had to place the board across using our superpower and it felt very nice when we did it together.”
Henry – “I learned that even if you do badly at something it doesn’t matter as long as you tried.”
Freddie – “The trip was amazing. It feels good to know there is always someone there for you.”
Emerald Learning Zone
Harry – “I thought it was very nice when everyone encouraged me to climb up the log for the high ropes activity.”
Joseph – “The canoeing was a bit tricky but I used my resilience to keep trying and eventually I succeeded.”
Diamond Learning Zone
Lucy – “I really liked going to the adventure centre because of all of the fun activities. I especially liked canoeing because I enjoyed doing it with my friends and I’d never done it before. We did an activity called a spiderweb and it was all about teamwork.”
Olivia – “I love canoeing because I liked trying to go in the right direction with my friends. I also loved it when I had to swim over to the bush to get the leaf.”
Harley – “I liked doing the spiderweb because we were doing teamwork. I liked it where you had to stack the crates up and canoe in the lake. I liked it where you had to tip over, that was fun.”
