For many of our Year 4 cohort, the trip to Woodrow High House was likely to have been their first time on a school residential, providing a chance to build independence, confidence, and resilience in a safe and supportive setting. Through a range of hands-on, adventurous activities, pupils developed key life skills such as teamwork, problem-solving, and communication, all while forming stronger friendships and discovering new strengths. We caught up with some of the children to find out more about the challenges they faced.

Millie
Over our two days at Woodrow I had an experience I will never forget. I really enjoyed the high ropes. When I got to the first level I felt happy but also scared. And when we wanted to come down Mr Woodall would play “I Believe I Can Fly”on his phone and everyone would laugh - this made it less scary. On the coach home everyone was still singing the songs that we learnt at the campfire. It was awesome fun.

 Kaiyan
Woodrow High House was amazing and I learnt a lot about overcoming my fears. In particular I liked the pioneering, where we had to use logs and rope to construct a bridge. When we finally crossed the bridge I felt scared because it felt like you were going to fall through the gaps. However, I should have trusted our knots!

Heidi
First, we arrived and the instructor who does the activities gave us a tour around the house. Next, we did a scavenger hunt. We had to get into groups for the scavenger hunt and use the clues to figure out the crossword. My group was the first one to finish the hunt. I was super happy about that. Then, we went on to find different objects like rough objects, smooth objects and even objects that you think are beautiful. I found a beautiful grey feather. 

Harper
When we arrived at Woodrow I thought that the house was colossal on the outside but even bigger on the inside! The first activity that I did was a scavenger hunt and we split up into groups of up to five people. We had to go around and find the answers spread out around the field. Then we did our first activity after lunch which was bushcraft. We had to collect a bunch of large and small sticks then gather them up into a little pile to make a fire with cotton. I tried so hard to make a fire but it was also super hard and tricky.

Joshua
When we got there we had a tour of Woodrow High House. I thought it was massive! Then we did an amazing treasure hunt with clues and things. The treasure hunt was all around Woodrow! It was really fun and  I was so excited for the rest of the day. Next we did bushcraft. We were in groups and I had some of my friends in my group. First in bushcraft we learnt about trees and sticks. Then we went into the wooded area and used a lighter to light the fire on a piece of cotton wool. One of my friends lit the fire, it was great.