Year 6 Residential 2022
12th June 2022
We’ve arrived! Our Year 6 group gave a collective yell of delight as our coach crossed the Severn Bridge into Wales. Now that we are here at the Maes Y Lade activity centre, the children have been busy finding their rooms, unpacking bags and helping each other make their beds before supper time. It’s a warm, sunny afternoon here, and the weather is forecast to be good throughout the week for all the fantastic activities the children will be enjoying. The Roding staff are equally excited, as this is the first time since 2019 that we have been able to bring Year 6 to Maes Y Lade. It promises to be an excellent week!
Monday 13th
What an amazing start to the week’s activities with the group led by Miss Daly and Mr Morris! Teddy, Harriett, Aryan, Ana, Ollie, Amy, William, Penelope, Shqiptar and Julia faced one of the toughest challenges presented by our stay at Maes Y Lade..... climbing a mountain. The peak of Twmpa is 680 metres above sea level. Our group of intrepid mountaineers found themselves scrambling up sharp inclines as Elliot, our instructor, chose to take us the most direct route to the summit - which meant the steepest! Today the weather was on our side as the sun broke through some light cloud, with a gentle breeze helping make it a very pleasant climb to the top and along the mountain ridge. The children were rewarded for their tremendous effort with breathtaking views over Brecon National Park. Then we made a more leisurely descent, watched from a distance by just a few curious sheep and wild ponies.
Group 1 - Mr Ashbrook’s group
Day 1 - Caving!
Wow! What an incredible first day of activities with my group that consists of Teja, Lucy, Annie, Mika, Max, Archie, Deen, Harper, Michal, Louis & Finlay.
My group set off in the minibus for an hour deep in to the heart of the Brecon Beacons to the caves known as ‘Porth Yr Ogof.’ This particular cave system is made up of approximately 2.5km of underground rivers, dry passages, pools and submerged passages known as sumps.
The Caving activity always tests the children’s resilience, teamwork, determination and for some of the children their ability to cope with closed/dark spaces. I feel so proud to say that all your children encouraged and supported one another to overcome every challenge that they faced. In fact, our instructor Ray said it was the first group that managed to get through a part of the cave called the ‘wormhole’ which you can only imagine how much of a squeeze it was getting through!!!
What an amazing first day with an amazing group of children!
Mr Ashbrook
Miss Daly and Mr Morris’s fabulous group of adventurers.
Monday 13th June
Group 2 Mrs Pearse’s group.
Keahn, Charlie, Mason, Blake Adrian, Ruby, Veeyna, Zeynep, Emma & Isabella.
Wake up time is normally 7.30 but the girls in the Farmhouse decided that 5.45am was a better time to get up this morning! We heard the boys also had a similarly early morning!
However, Filled with energy after our hearty breakfast were on our way. Our first stop was to walk along an old railway track and into the tunnel! Sounds simple enough - except for about 300 metres of the tunnel we were in complete darkness. The children helped Mrs Pearse to keep going by singing songs from the Our Yr6 play - loudly! We made a human centipede and with great team spirit and resilience we made our way all the way through without using the (hidden) torch. There was a great cheer when we literally saw the light at end of the tunnel!
Next stop was the zip line which everybody did brilliantly - even if they were not keen to start!
Then after lunch, to finish our fun day, we went gorge walking in a beautiful part of Wales called
Blaen y Glynn.
With each stop our waterfall challenge grew and the children had great fun crawling, swimming, jumping, falling and sliding down the stream and under waterfalls. Even in full waterproofs and wellies we were all soaked, but smiling!
We arrived home and had a ‘who’s got the most water in their wellies competition’ before heading to a hot shower and warm clothes!
Tuesday 14th June
A fun and adventurous day for group 2 in the caves today!
We learnt that the Limestone cave system is about 330million years old and can tell us much about our natural history. Ray our instructor was impressed with the children’s knowledge of sedimentary rock & fossils!
After an early lunch we headed into the cave.
The next 2.5 hours consisted of winding our way through narrow and shallow passages - sometimes on hands & knees and sometimes in our bellies!
Mrs Pearse was extremely proud watching every child do the mud chamber challenge, the river passage, the wormhole and even the letterbox! The children took in turns to lead each other through different passages and demonstrated amazing leadership skills, determination and enthusiasm. A brilliant day by all which ended with a jump in a rather cold plunge pool!
Today two groups - the one led by Miss Daly and Mr Morris, together with the group led by Mr Ashbrook - enjoyed a range of activities on a very special ‘Adventure Day’. It included walking the length of a disused railway tunnel in total, pitch-black darkness, emerging into daylight 20 minutes later. All the children also took turns to strap on a harness and fly above a stream on a zip wire. Finally, our instructors David and Ollie presented a series of challenges as the two groups waded, scrambled and climbed upstream, navigating rocks, rapids and a waterfall. Everyone was thoroughly soaked by the end, but achieved a great deal by encouraging each other every muddy and watery step of the way!
Team building
Today (Wednesday 15th June), Mr Ashbrook’s group took on probably the hardest challenge of the week; climbing one of the Welsh mountains known as Twmpa. My amazing group encouraged one another throughout especially during those difficult moments where some of them were saying they couldn’t make it to the top! But thankfully everyone made it and the sense of achievement after our 20,000 step hike up the mountain proved to themselves they achieve whatever they want when they dig deep! It was made more difficult today as the weather was scorching! The children were thankful that they packed 2 bottles of water each and drank every last drop before we got back to the venue!
The children found the climb up the hardest but were blown away when they got to the top and were greeted by wild horses and the picturesque views over Brecon National Park! Again every member of my group; Archie, Max, Deen, Mika, Lucy, Teja, Annie, Harper, Michal, Louis & Finlay were a pleasure to be with and have done their families and Roding proud all week! Mr Ashbrook.
Today group 2 canoed from Haye on Wye to Whitney along the Wye river - a site of outstanding natural beauty. One of our group commented “I’m scared but I want to do it anyway” which is a great summary of all of our activities so far including today.
We first canoed, in the glorious sunshine, 2 miles to a beach where we ate lunch and skimmed stones.
After lunch we canoed - fairly leisurely - trying to avoid the trees and getting stuck on rocks, 3 miles downstream to Whitney. We saw herons, a kingfisher and even sand martins.
Mrs Pearse’s team were nicknamed ‘The soggy Charlie’s’ for the number of times Charlie offered to jump in and push us when we were ‘stuck’.
We finished our day with some wild swimming.
So, another successful day with all of our team joining in, working as a team and generally just enjoying having fun together
It’s another glorious, sunny day here at Maes Y Lade, and the group led by Miss Daly and Mr Morris enjoyed spectacular views of the Brecon Beacons in the sunshine during an hour’s drive before….plunging into darkness!
Yes, today it was the turn of Julia, Shqiptar, Penelope, William, Amy, Ollie, Ana, Aryan, Harriett and Teddy to explore the amazing Porth yr Orof cave system.
Our instructor, Ray, has had decades of experience wriggling through caves in many parts of the world. When he was satisfied that the children were fully kitted out and were aware of a few important safety measures, Ray led everyone from the huge cave mouth straight down into some very narrow and challenging passages. Such an unfamiliar environment - dark, confined, wet and deep underground - was quite daunting for some. But the children all supported and encouraged each other to squeeze through even the tightest and most physically demanding sections, including “the Letterbox”, “the Wormhole” and “the Sewer”. Even Miss Daly - who has never been caving before - got stuck right in with every challenge!
When we finally scrambled back up to daylight, Ray gave us all the opportunity to leap off a rocky ledge, straight into a pool of chilly water. He then commended the whole group on their willingness and determination, and all the children agreed that it was certainly very different from a normal Wednesday afternoon at school!
A little light cloud but still warm and plenty of sunshine for Thursday, the last full day of activities for Year 6 in beautiful Maes Y Lade. Today Miss Daly and Mr Morris’s group and Mr Ashbrook’s group joined forces, so we had 20 children enjoying a day of energetic canoeing on the River Wye. Our instructors David and Ollie helped us navigate this beautiful waterway, with a red kite circling above us and swans, ducks and dragonflies keeping us company too. Sometimes our canoeing efforts were well coordinated, sometimes a little less so! The canoeing teams jostled for pole position on the river, and whenever two found themselves side-by-side there was a great deal of splashing of water with paddles to give the opposition a bit of a soaking!
For lunch we moored up and practised skimming stones on the river. When we did finally reach our destination, all the Roding staff and children cooled down by swimming and mucking about in the water until the minibus came to take us home. A fantastic day!
Mountain day -Group 2’s hardest challenge of the week!
Today, Blake, Mason, Adrian, Charlie, Keahn, Isabella, Ruby, Veena and Emma Rose climbed 700 metres to the top of a mountain in the Welsh Black mountain range called ‘Twmpa’.
The temperature was around 24’C when we set off at 10.30 and got progressively hotter from there! However, we were well prepared for the heat with 2 water bottles each, high factor sun cream, sun hats and insect repellent.
It was a struggle climbing in the blazing sun and everyone was very tired after 3 full days of adventures but we kept putting one foot in front of the other, did a little bit of scrambling up a gulley and before we knew it, we had reached the top! And what a wonderful sight we were rewarded with! We had a 360 degree view over the Black mountains and the Brecon Beacons and could see for miles.
We sat at the top and enjoyed our lunch while watching the wild horses - that were so close we almost touched them! Although the children were hot and tired for most of today they continued to be so supportive of each other. Showing great determination and perseverance they encouraged up and over the mountain and all the way back to Maes Y Laed.
Mrs Pearse has been especially pleased to see how new and old friendships have grown over these last few days. What a great end to a great week! Well done group 2!
Year 6 have said farewell to Wales and have just left at 9.45am this morning. They are expected back around normal school home time (3.15pm) but we will give another update when they are 30mins away. See you soon! Year 6.