Year 5 - Ufton Court Residential 2022 - Day 3

Day 3

Dear parents and carers,

Last night, we ended our evening with ‘The Festival of Dionysus’ – and what an evening it was! We all got to dress up in Tunics, including the Teachers who were no longer our teachers but leaders! We paraded through Ufton Court House through to the great barn dressed as flower ladies, playing musical instruments such as the tambourine and chanted ‘All Hail Dionysus’. It was the beginning of a great festival! When we arrived at our destination, we were told we were only allowed to do things once the leaders started doing them; for example, we weren’t able to pull our chairs out until they did, we weren’t able to take a sip of our ‘wine’ till they did, and we weren’t able to feast, till they did! Thankfully, the teachers were all in a good mood, so they sat down quickly and tucked into the platters on the table as soon as they could, meaning we, the children, could eat and drink too! We all had ‘wine’ too aka mango juice as Dionysus was God of wine! The banquet consisted of potatoes, chicken drumsticks (alternatives provided where needed) and corn on the cob and we demolished it all! Guess what? In Ancient Greece, they didn’t use forks, so we had to use other tools to help us pick up our food – our hands! Following the dinner, it was then time for pudding, which was a large piece of homemade victoria sponge cake and lots of fruit – all of the fruit disappeared within minutes and nearly half the cake was gobbled up – we saved the other half of the cake for our refreshment break today. This was then followed by some entertainment, provided by the children, to entertain the leaders. Children were put into groups and had to mime out certain things – from emotions to Greek Jobs to Greek gods and goddesses. They all did a wonderful job and all the children won a round each, meaning they were all winners!

When we got back to the house after the festival, we were all very tired and sleepy, so most of us wanted to head straight upstairs to our bedrooms. So, at around 8.15, children had some time in their rooms or down in the great hall where they read, played a few games, packed their cases, before trying to get to sleep by 9.30 – where most children were snoring away by 9.31! That’s how exhausted we all were!

Now, back to today! We woke up very sleepy today, with most of us struggling to get out of bed – so parents, be warned, they’ll be coming home very tired so I’m sure there will be lots of early evenings tonight! Due to it being our last morning, we had to strip our beds so Ufton Court could wash and prepare for the next guests. Once we were ready, we had our breakfast to wake our brains up and, like yesterday, we had lots of cereals to choose from (coco pops being the most popular again) and this time 2 loaves of bread (for toast) were had between us all!

Our first activity of the day was ‘Olympic Sports’. Here we played lots of Sports which came about in the Ancient Greek times which we still play now. These included us throwing spears to see how far they went – this is similar to javelin. We also played tug of war which helped us to work and communicate as a team and we also did some running – we carried out 8 laps of the gardens – but in reality, during the Olympics they would have had to have run 48 laps of the garden for it to equate to a marathon. We all had a good time and it was nice to be in the fresh air too!

Following our activity and refreshment break that we had after ‘Olympic Sports’ we spoke about the date it is: 11.11.22. Today, is Armistice Day, the day we dedicate to the soldiers who died fighting to protect the nation. As a class, we took a 2 minutes silence to acknowledge the courage and sacrifice of those who served their country and to acknowledge our responsibility to work for the peace they fought hard to achieve. We will remember them.

Our final activity of the day was ‘Greek Artefacts’. Here, we were introduced to several Greek artefacts, and it was amazing to be so hands on with items from this period of time. The items consisted of vases, musical instruments, and children’s games, to name a few. We then played ‘Cash in the attack, where we pretended, we were selling one of the items at ‘The Agora’ which is the market. Children used their knowledge from yesterday’s activity from the Agora trading game to aid them. We had to think about what the item is, how much we wanted for it, what was the use of the item and why people need it in their lives. Some children were great traders whilst others reminded the teacher of Del Boy and his flogging tactics.

At 12 O’clock, we’ll be heading for a picnic lunch in the grounds of Ufton Court before we return back to Chiswick.

We’ve had such an amazing time here, with all of the children saying they loved all of the staff members, activities and told us how they would love to come back here again for some of the family days they do here, however, we’re equally looking forward to heading home too to see our family and friends and be at one with our home comforts again!

The coach is due to pick us up from Ufton Court at around 1pm and we aim to be back in Chiswick for between 2 and 2.30. The school will contact parents via parent mail with updates too, in case of any delays etc. All children are to return to school, as part of safeguarding measures, where Miss Scannell and Mr Lyons will then dismiss the children to parents and carers from the school gates – if parents can wait outside the gates, we would be grateful. Please don’t fret if you can’t collect them at 2-2.30, normal pick-up time is also fine (3.15pm).

See you all soon! Love from Year 5 xxx