Ski Trip - April 2025

Having taken over the reins of Calthorpe Park’s long running and very successful ski trip, I hope our students have had a fantastic experience and speak positively about their experience for many days to come.

          

As the busy Spring term come to an end, 64 students and nine members of staff boarded the coach at midday on Saturday 5 April. This was the start of an another longstanding adrenaline thrilling trip that Calthorpe offers. This year’s destination was Grandvalira in Andorra, the largest ski resort in the Pyrenees. It boasts 210km of pistes.  The resort is suitable for all levels and all students throughout the week made outstanding progress on the slopes. As they looked to perfect their snow plough, parallel turns, jumps and various other tricks on skis, we were incredibly proud of their progress.

The students were amazing and conducted themselves brilliantly on the trip. It was a pleasure to take them. Every student will take something different away from this experience, though their short-term memories  of the trip may inevitably be the progress they made on the slopes, the breath-taking scenery which they experienced travelling up in the Gondola, to laughs and time with their friends.

          

In the long term, they will be able to use this experience where they used resilience and remaining committed to getting better at something. Whether that was conquering a Black Run, getting back up after they fell, digging deep to go out on the slopes, even when they felt ill or putting themselves out there to make new friends. If our Ski Trip teaches us anything, it should be that we can accomplish anything if we put our mind to it.

During our time in Andorra we stayed at Hotel Cervol where we were very well looked after.  There was lots of food choice, however I am sure our students are looking forward to having something other than chips.

Whilst the main focus of our time in Andorra was focused on skiing, students clearly enjoyed their time together and particularly in the evenings, led brilliantly by Mr Darmanin, our natural game show host, hosting Bingo, the Name game and the Grand National sweep stake. He also conducted our traditional nominations ceremony which saw students being awarded a silly hat for epic falls, silly comments and general mishaps which took place on the slopes. Remember ‘It could be you!’  We also managed to find time to have a pizza night and an evening of bowling. However, I think the majority of our students should stick to skiing! Duty-free shopping in Andorra was popular amongst many, I hope they did bring you a gift home from Andorra.

     

I owe a huge debt of thanks to our drivers, Mike and Martin, who got us safely to Andorra. Furthermore to Gill, Cynthia and John from Equity. I could not offer this experience to our students without the support of my eight colleagues who worked tirelessly to ensure the welfare of our students throughout the trip, giving up the start of their Easter holiday to help create life-long memories for every student. Special mention must go to Mr Moore, my right hand man, who has supported me in running this experience and has spent many hours helping to plan every detail of this trip. I could not run this trip without him, even if he does like to wind me up. As a school we are very lucky to have him and his experience of planning many trips previously. We also had two staff this year who were complete beginners to skiing confidently down the slopes.

Mr Moore and I are hoping we will be able to provide a different experience every year for our students with 2026 already booked; we are heading to Claviere (Italy) and 2027 is being planned.

Mr M-J