Outside the classroom
In Primary 6 there are residential experiences available for the pupils, including a week at the Broomlee Outdoor Education Centre, Biggar where the pupils engage in challenging and team-building activities. The Broomlee adventure is such a wonderful experience for all, it is planned to develop this type of experience for younger children at the Junior School.
Trips tend to be the highlight for all the children at the Junior School. These take the form of topic-related trips to The Museum of Scotland, The Museum of Childhood, The Science Museum and many more. Trips which occur in the last week of the academic year take more of a social slant where children and staff see these trips as an opportunity to develop relationships in a different context. Classes visit the beach, the Sea Bird Centre, the Safari Park, The Time Capsule and a variety of other places.
As the children get older they have the opportunity for overnight trips away. For example to York, where pupils experience the National Railway Museum, The Castle Museum of Social History or climb Clifford Tower, ride a Guide Friday tour bus or marvel at the grandeur of York Minster.
Children's Expedition Reports
Primary Six York Trip
Day Two Day Three |
Broomlee
Our first activity of the day was the pole climb. You have to climb to the top of the pole using the rods around it, climb onto a platform, then jump up and touch a ball that’s hanging from a rope. I think the hardest part is putting on the safety harness! Next we did orienteering. Our objective was to find little green blocks all round the camp by reading a map. After that, there was a prize-giving. Max Hudson and James Reith won small skateboards, and our dorm, scoring the most points for being the tidiest, was allowed to choose from different packets of sweets! Finally we all piled onto buses and travelled back to Edinburgh. I would like to thank all the teachers involved for making it such a fun expedition. It was a great trip! Ski Trip to Tonale
Another Tonale report
The next day we had our first ski lesson. Our instructor was called Jacky, he was very nice. I learned how to improve my parallel turns. I really enjoyed this school, trip and I would recommend it to a friend. I want to thank Mr Prosser, Mrs Bashford, Mr Tyrell and Mr Murray. |
Deep Sea World
In the lesson we were told about the food chain of the ocean and how they eat their prey, like the starfish. This is a fact about the starfish: it takes two days to open a mussel. I learnt it at Deep Sea World. When we were in the shark tunnel everybody was so, so amazed about how big all the fi sh and sharks were. In the Amazon section the fish and rays were really, really big and one of them when it would stand up would be close to my height. Overall I think everybody in Primary 5 and the teachers enjoyed it. |
Day One
We had breakfast. I had sausages and toast, which I really liked. Then we walked to the Shambles and I took a picture of the Shambles; it looked a bit funny. Then we went to the Jorvik Viking Centre; it smelt funny in there. Afterwards we went to Clifford’s Tower, where I got a bow and arrow. I thought that Clifford’s Tower was very tall. Then we had our lunch in a park. Afterwards we played Indians and Cowboys. Then we took a tour of York – it looked very pretty – and then we walked back to the youth hostel and we had tea. Today it was cheese and tomato pizza and mashed potato or potato wedges. Then we had inspection and our evening activities were ‘Heads down, thumbs up’ and a game when Mr Wilson told a story and he told the person at the front of the line a word and when he said that word you squeezed a person’s hand and he put up keys and he is asked what the word was. Then after that game it was lights out. 
For breakfast I had the same as Tuesday. Then we went to the Castle Museum of Social History. After that we went to the train station but about halfway there we stopped and had lunch. When we arrived at York train station the train was late by twenty minutes. On the train I read about 130 pages of my Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for two hours and thirty minutes. Then we arrived at Waverley Station at 3.40 p.m.
On Thursday morning I was awoken by the usual sounds of arguing over who had been snoring the loudest and ‘Who’s stolen my torch?’, etc. I was in a good mood as Arsenal had narrowly beaten Portsmouth the previous night (Mr Gray came in with goal alerts, as he had been listening on the radio). Most of our packing was done before breakfast, and as usual there was a delicious choice ranging from a bowl of porridge to a full cooked breakfast. After that there was a scramble back to the dorms to get ready for inspection of our quarters. When I came in, Alasdair Kennedy was frantically spraying deodorant everywhere, saying the teachers would like the smell. However it made it very difficult to breathe! Our boys were all lined up in a neat row when Mr McCloghry came in to inspect. David November offered him a sweet, while all the others stood behind him with innocent smiles on their faces (a method I had discovered on Tuesday that seemed to work well). As he went round the rooms we held our breath until he had given us a mark out of ten for each room. We scored a total of 41 out of 50 that day. 
At 2 a.m. on Easter Sunday a group of P6 pupils, Geits and Second Years went to Tonale in Italy. My dad dropped me off at school and we went to Prestwick Airport on a coach. When we got there we went and got our skis. That night we had tea and stayed in the games room. The weather was pretty bad and the snow slushy in parts. We could all ski in our group, and our guide Max let us ski around the mountain. The pace was fast and despite the weather we did a lot of skiing. There was lots of fun after the skiing activities including charades, a general knowledge quiz and pizza nights. It was good to meet some of the senior boys, and we came home feeling that we had had a good holiday.
I had to get up at 1:30am to make sure that I got to the bus at the school for 2am. I was extremely tired and also it didn’t make things better that I couldn’t get to sleep that night. We all went on to the bus for a gruelling 6 hour coach trip to Manchester. When we arrived at the Terminal, we sat on chairs. I played cards with Callum Rust, Donald Inwood and Jamie Black. We were flying with Jet2. The flight was very good. I was happy that we were in Geneva but I was just about to board another coach! The journey on that coach was also gruelling. Our hotel was called the Beau Soleil, but thanks to my French lessons I translated it in English as the Lovely Sun. Our rooms were good. I ran up to our room just to get the top bunk. I got it! 
Primary 5 went to Deep Sea World. We had a lesson about life in the sea. We also got to touch fish and sharks we had never seen before. This page is: Edinburgh Academy / juniorschool / expeditions / index.htm
