Review by Nathaniel - Year 6

Ever since I joined Aldrington in Reception, I have looked forward to the Year 6 residential trip to Carroty Wood.  When my friends and I learned that our Carroty Wood trip would not be able to go ahead due to the Coronavirus, we were all really disappointed.  However, our Year 6 teachers have worked really hard and came up with an alternative plan for us to all enjoy some end of term fun.

Starting with a Year 6 camp out at school on Thursday, followed by a trip to the Lewes Railway Land Wildlife Trust on Friday, Watersports at Hove Lagoon on Monday and a visit to Chessington World of Adventures on Tuesday.  Sadly, I fractured my knee cap so I didn’t get to enjoy the last two activities but I was really glad to be able to participate in the overnight camp and the wildlife trip, even with my leg in a brace.

On the Thursday morning we did some normal school work but in the afternoon the whole of Year 6 went out onto the field for a game of rounders.  Unfortunately our class lost but we still had great fun.

We then went back to the school where we played in the playground until it was time for our group to go and choose our pizza toppings to make our pizzas using the school pizza oven for dinner.

It was very funny when Faris dropped his pizza before it made it into the pizza oven.  He had to start all over again making a new one.  The pizzas were really tasty.

After eating our pizzas, we all enjoyed hot chocolate and marshmallows, toasted on the campfire in the Forest School.

The best thing about the camping trip was the fact we didn’t have to pitch our own tents.  These were already put up for us on the Blatchington Mill field.  Our tent was a big green, eight man tent with four sleeping pods surrounding a central open space where we kept our bags.

I was sharing a pod with my friend Joshi and in the other pods were my friends Xander, Jude, Joe, Eddy, Rami and Leni.

It was quite amusing to hear Indigo squealing when she found an earwig in her tent. There were a lot of earwigs and quite a lot of water from the rain too!

Bedtime was supposed to be at 9.00pm but it took us all so long to make our pizzas that we ended up staying up until 10.30pm.

Most of the Year 6 teaching team (Mr Lodge, Mrs Clasby, Mrs Smith, Mr Long, Miss Valentine and Mrs Carden) accompanied us for the camping trip, they made lots of trips taking us all to the toilets and staying up all night on patrol to keep us safe.

I ended up staying awake talking to Joshi until 12.30am!  We finally fell asleep and then the rain woke me again at around 1.00am.  I was quite startled to discover that Joshi smiles in his sleep.  It was very freaky to wake up to find him lying there grinning at me while he was fast asleep!  I finally fell asleep again and everyone but Leni and Jude woke at 4am.

I really enjoyed the camping and it was so fun playing with all my friends.  The ground was quite hard though and I discovered that a roll mat is nowhere near as comfortable as an inflatable mattress.

For breakfast I had Brioche, apple juice and a banana.

I would definitely recommend a school camping experience (unless you don’t sleep very well!!).