Fairthorne Manor

Year 4 children are invited to attend their first residential visit to Fairthorne Manor, Botley in April.  For many children, this could be their first time staying away from home so a 2 day, one night visit is perfect for building the children’s confidence.

The visit begins bright and early on a Friday morning.  After a quick registration, exciting and action-packed activities take place throughout the day.  The activities on offer are all led by qualified instructors and are as follows:

Fire lighting – children learn how to gather firewood to build and light their own campfire.

Aerial Runway – Climbing up a platform, children launch themselves off for a thrilling ride along a zip wire!

Climbing Tower – Children learn climbing skills and techniques to scale a purpose-built climbing wall.

Crate Challenge – Using communication skills, balance and co-ordination, the children must work together to build a tower of crates – whilst climbing up them!

There are also additional team building activities which take place over the course of the 2 days.  The blindfold trail relies on trust as one partner leads the other around an obstacle course then there are plenty of team challenges and games to keep the children active and engaged.     

At the end of the first day, the children enjoy singing and joke telling around a campfire with a toasted marshmallow and hot chocolate treat.  The children then settle down into their dorms for a good night’s sleep!

On Saturday morning the activities continue until parents collect at 11am. 

What our pupils have to say about their residential visit to Fairthorne Manor

“My favourite part was the zip wire because it was fun to watch the teachers zooming down on it!” Sophia

“I loved the blindfold trail because I got to lead everyone around the forest trail and had to tell them where to go.” Orla

“I liked the fire lighting because I was the leader of the group and had to make the cotton wool into a pile so I could light the file.  It was a good to learn survival skills.” Josh

“I really liked a team building game we played called ‘cat and mouse’.  We had to join arms and two people ran around the maze we made trying to catch each other.  When I played it I fell over and laughed a lot!”  Owen