French Trip 2024 Day One

Day One

Me or You?

What a fantastic start to the 2024 St Michael’s French Trip!  Despite rising at the crack of dawn, our pupils are currently chatting and giggling in their rooms while showering after a long day, and a sweaty, energetic game of football tonight.  Well , we hope they are showering.  They promised…..

Behaviour, attitude and manners have been superb all day, and those seasoned French Trip adults amongst us agree this is one of the best first nights we have ever had.  AMAZING French was spoken by so many, kindness and caring shown towards each other.  Madame B thinks the standard of French this year is the highest we have ever had – you would be so impressed by your children.

The title of tonight’s blog refers to the game played on the ferry – there was an impressive assortment of card games this year, well done – and we were really quite intrigued by “Me or You?” It’s not often on a Year 6 French Trip that we catch pupils discussing which of them would be most likely to win a Nobel Peace Prize, but there’s a first time for everything.

Before we go on – thank you so much to those of you who have reared ‘feeders’ – one or two children have provided us with doughnuts, force fed us with sweets but one adult was slightly disappointed that they were not offered a slice of cold pizza that was about to be tucked into at the early time of 8am. Speaking of food, there are a couple of boys who are either extremely well prepared or have no faith in being fed at all. In one bag alone, the contents included: six cartons of juice, three other drinks, boxes of breakfast bars and too many other pieces of food to mention. Another young man had the biggest smile of his life whilst being surrounding by all his savory snacks (sausage rolls, wraps, pork pies). One other lad misread the itinerary and actually made a mini packed lunch for every single day we are here.  But top marks for thinking ahead.

Duty free with Year 6 was an interesting experience – one young lady was horrified at the price of Tom Ford aftershave (£250) dismissing it as “errr disgusting, who would spend that!!”  She isn’t wrong, to be fair.  Another young man enjoyed his fragrance strip so much that he could be seen sniffing it for a long time afterwards.

The journey here was smooth and without incident, much better than last year, and in fact we arrived an hour early at Rando Rail.  Being early is not a common occurrence for Madame Betteridge, by her own admission, and Christof and Davide at Rando Rail were suitably surprised.  The early bird doesn’t always catch the worm however, and there was a collective groan from the staff as we realized we had to travel downhill for 5km first ( at a pleasant 15mph) but UPHILL on the way back for 5km at a far slower pace. The sun came out and the ice cream at the end of everyone’s efforts was most appreciated – though one boy immediately dropped his on the gravel in his excitement. There was a very high standard of organization amongst some of the teams in their Rando Rail carts, and anything others lacked in coordination, they made up for with enthusiasm. Even those who lost hoodies, water bottles and indeed inhalers on the track as they pedalled, were reunited with them.

You would think everyone might be a little tired after the early start, long journey and 10km of Rando Rail. However, few fell asleep on the coach on the way to the hotel and more talking and card games were still the order of the day.

The beauty of Mister Bed hotel soon hove into view, and gasps of awe and wonder were quickly replaced by the excitement of wondering who their roommate would be. Once the coach was unloaded, and everyone was seated on the grass outside the hotel, names and rooms were read out and there was much air punching and hisses of “yessss!”  Mr Bird’s hard work sorting out the room shares seemed to have been a hit.  As we write, most rooms are pretty much silent apart from one young man who has just asked us if it’s ok to go to sleep now.  The answer is yes.

And on that note, we happy but sleepy staff must also think about some rest, before a busy day tomorrow.

In a gigantic leap of technological confidence, we will attempt to publish this on the new school website, as well as through Parentmail.  Please bear in mind some of us have been up since 4am so we may be overestimating ourselves somewhat. If you find a way to comment back to us, please do so, as we will share these with the children.  An old- fashioned email will work just as well.

Bonne Nuit.

The Year 6 Team