Boarders Had Great Last In-Weekend Of The Academic Year

As the last weekend of the academic year, there’s always a lot of excitement and anticipation for the last in-weekend and wow, did it feel like a grand finale!

We started the day with the Junior boys and girls piling into the common room before breakfast to finish off their film from the night before. It has been such a busy term it felt good to have such a leisurely start to the day.

For the Year 8 boarders it was especially leisurely! Rather than enjoying the full English with the rest of the boarders, the Year 8 girls celebrated their last weekend together with a special breakfast outside in their pyjamas, tucking into waffles, strawberries and cream. After this, they enjoyed some more time as a group decorating pillowcases with Hazlegrove memories that they can take with them to their next schools. It was a wonderful start to their last boarder’s Sunday.

It was then off to letter writing for all the boarders before an incredible variety of activities. We had everything from a campfire with hot dogs to swimming, tennis, a water slide, paper marbling, face painting, mega-dodgeball, dancing… the list goes on and on! The children dived into each activity before running off to the next to fit in as much as possible before a delicious roast lunch.

After lunch, it was time for rest and reading followed by an afternoon out on the playing field FULL of inflatables! Watching the children in the inflatable sumo suits and all sorts of face paints, from dogs to clowns and superheroes, was almost as entertaining as watching staff battle it out on the bucking bronco and gladiator duel! Katie came away as the supreme surfer – after five minutes of riding the waves, she had to admit she’d beaten the machine! The boarders quite literally threw themselves down the giant slide but also took turns taking the resident toddlers on their laps. There was also a particularly epic sumo suit duel between Dino and Mr Head!

We rounded off the activities with ice cream before chapel from Mr Farquhar who came in specially to talk to the children and got them to think about the theme of forgiveness.

It’s always such a highlight to have everyone out on the playing field and this weekend was wonderful, seeing every member of the boarding community playing, chatting and seeing in the end of the summer term together. As one of the year 5 boys said to me, ‘It really was the best weekend ever!’

Mrs Froggatt

Click here to see all the photographs on Flickr