summary report 09 - Y Pant School

Ski Trip - Altenmarkt, Austria in February 2009Bright and early on Friday the 13 th February twocoaches filled to the brim with 94 staff and pupils leftfor Altenmarkt in Austria. The journey throughGermany was notable for blizzard conditions causingus to arrive in the resort three hours late. That’s the badnews! From then on wonderful snow and blue skiescombined to give us six full days of challenging skiing.The resort of Zauchensee was our ski base, only 15minutes up the road.E v e n i n gentertainmentincluded bowling andcurling. Both werereally good fun withsome particularexcitement on thecurling rink. Ourhotel was a purposebuilt youth hotel,certainly not your traditional hostel. The food was thebest ever experienced in Austria and the sportingfacilities amazing. We had table tennis and a mediumsized hall where we could play 5 a side football.However, there was also a large sports hall where weplayed football and basketball every night for up to 2hours. The bedrooms were bright and modern withplenty of space to unpack and relax.The time passed very quickly and the efforts of allwere rewarded on our last night, presentation evening.Serious and funny awards were made, everyonereceiving a ski certificate. As a reminder that skiingcan be hazardous Ishould mention that oneboy broke his leg on theslopes. Happily, he wasvery well treated and hasmade a full recovery. Weshall certainly be puttingAltenmarkt/Zauchenseenear the top of our listfor a future trip.Mr. J. OwenTrip to Northern FranceMarch 18th to 21st 200948 Year 8&9 students, together with their Frenchteachers and Mr. Sweet, left Y Pant early in themorning of Wednesday, March 18th en route to theChâteau d’Ebblinghem near St. Omer in the north ofFrance, arriving late afternoon at their comfortable,purpose-built accommodation operated by NST Travel.Thursday’s first visit was to a village bakery inNeufchatel-Hardelot, where the owner demonstrated thebread-making process and the students had a go atmaking croissants. They also got to practise theirFrench numbers as the baker explained how many litresof water, kilos of flour and so on. After a packed lunchon a local beach, students spent the afternoonanswering questions on a worksheet based on thepedestrian area of St. Omer. The evening activity wasmaking crêpes, French pancakes.Friday found the group at the site of the battle of theSomme in 1916, where students saw trenches, amassive crater caused by an underground explosion andthe incredible Thiepval Memorial. In the graveyard atPozières, they saw a memorial to a young soldier fromLlanharry. Students were moved by Mr. Sweet’saccount of the horrors of battle in the First World War.On Saturday, studentsspent their last eurosin the Cité Europeshopping mall outsideCalais, beforereturning to Wales,tired but happy.Mrs. E. Davies