How times have changed in our educational institutions. My eldest son is currently two weeks into a three week tour of Singapore and New Zealand, playing drums in his state school big band (they are fantastic) and taking a couple of parts in two drama productions. He is taking part in an international music and drama school for a week near Auckland and various other amazing events. At 17, this opportunity could be, I suspect, truly life changing.
When I was at school (late 1970s to mid 1980s), the best school trip I had was visit the Iron Bridge in Shropshire. We sketched it (badly)and stayed a night in a youth hostel. One of our closest friends got to visit a stuffed bear factory!
So, what was you're best school trip?
(btw, this isn't sour grapes on my part! As someone who works in the education sector, I realise that the opportunities we give our young people today in many state schools are first class and should be celebrated, not constantly criticised. State school education has, whatever the media says, improved dramatically over recent years imho).
A "Kevin Keegan Soccer Camp" on the Isle of Wight. That was 30 years ago when I was growing up in Liverpool and I was convinced I was going to become a pro footballer.....obviously I didn't and concentrated on rugby instead. I now own a house on the IOW!
I recently took a school trip - 58 boys to Singapore and Aus for 3 weeks of rugby & hockey. How school trips have changed! :roll:
My favourite school trip was to the first world war battlefields, I enjoyed it so much I did it again in sixth form, a close second but not actually a school trip, whilst in the scouts we sailed to France and stopped off on the channels islands on the way back in a sail training ship.
A dolphin show at Knowsley Safari Park.
I'd never seen anything other than a stray dog so it was very exciting.
The compare asked if it was anyone's birthday, so I lied and put my hand up. I went to the front, stroked it's breathing hole thingy and got a bag of freebies.
Tramping the Yorkshire Moors one Easter, youth hostelling, when I was 15. Cold, wet and wonderful (at least in memory!).
It would have been bang on 30 years ago when I was on the SS Uganda on a school cruise of the Med which my folks had saved and saved for knowing I was mad keen on Egyptology and the cruise was taking in Egypt.
Luckily, we'd just got back to the boat in Alexandria when it was requisitioned for the The Falklands conflict as a hospital ship. Steamed straight to Naples where we were dumped and she went to Gib for a refit and headed south to do sterling work.
Things have certainly changed. One of my cousin's young sons is a talented footballer and his school is taking them to the Windies. :shock:
The school trip that had the biggest influence on me was a week spent analysing the geography of North Wales. We walked miles through the mountains to see features caused by glaciation and periglaciation and it lifted the stuffy descriptions off the page into real life.
There's no subsititute for actually being there. Great stuff.
Over the barbed wire and across a few fields before being brought down by the school leopard.
Not so much a trip as an early escape attempt.
Cooler, 20 days? :)Originally Posted by IANAN
Germany
Lledr Valley ?
That s almost a word for word description of what I was about to post.
Happy days indeed .
Yes - exactly right. :)Lledr Valley ?
That s almost a word for word description of what I was about to post.
Happy days indeed .
Either it was a popular destination with VIth Formers studying physical geog. or we were on the same trip. :D
Graiguenamanagh in Co. Kilkenny and the three things I remember were, in no particular order
1. Being very popular because I had managed to liberate, in advance, a bottle of poitin from my father's stash.
2. Being allowed into a pub unsupervised in the evening (we're talking rural Ireland) and being allowed a pint as long as we behaved. I think I was 15 but looked about 12.
3. The canoeing and Niamh's impressive pokies after she'd taken her lifejacket off. She was no stunner but she stole the show that day.
In the Sotadic Zone, apparently.
Football tour in America. New York, Boston and New England. Went there to show the yanks how to play the great game........They smashed us every time.....
I never got on any school trips as my parents couldn't afford it :( When I was 15 and still at school, I applied to join the Police and on leaving school joined the Police Cadets. I won the best Police Cadet award for 2 years running achieving some pretty tough sporting triumphs and gathering various commendations from my Chief Constable.
Because of that I was selected to do either an overland 17k expedition to India, or go on the sail training ship, 'The Sir Winston Churchill', so being more of a land lubber I chose the expedition. Had to train with the army for 3 weeks before the start. That was the most amazing experience I've had so that was the school trip I never had :D
Rod
Exchange visit to France which included a trip to Le Mans.
A two week French exchange with an all girls school in Rouen
I participated 2 years running and loved every minute
Discovered a hell of a lot!
Day trip to France, when I was 13. We bought a load of lager, sat on the back of the coach on the way back and drank it :drunken:
Thun, Switzerland; second year trip, Easter 1984. The two teachers went out on the sauce every night, we copied 'em!
(Just realised that was 28 years ago WTF!)
My favourite was In my Junior School, a day trip to Portsmouth and Southampton to see all liners, followed by a trip around the needles and up the Solent which actually coincided with Admiral Lord Cunninghams burial at sea which we watched.
The following year was Fords at Dagenham. :lol:
Quite a contrast to my son's skiing trips to Canada and Mediterranean cruises.
We were poor but happy. :D
Cheers,
Neil.
A tour of Germany (Essen and the Ruhr) when I was 16 with the school basketball team in the 1970s. There were a lot of us on that basketball team - about 25 as I recall. Being a boys school and a busload of 16 year-olds, we took a great deal of interest in German beer, German beer halls, German girls, German pornography and assorted illegal-in-the UK things like flick knives. And very little interest in basketball. Following our appalling sporting performance all future trips were cancelled.
Great to hear about your recollections! Thanks for all the contributions and, as we discuss in educational circles, the extra (or hidden) curricular experiences that these trips bring are obviously as important as the curricula ones :lol: .
France,skiing.
Me and my mate watching the best looking girl in our year have a bath through the bathroom keyhole.
That was education at its very best!
Three or four weeks in Tanzania - a few days in Dar es Salaam, followed by a week in a village helping to build a medical centre, then a long drive to Mount Kilimanjaro, followed by a tour through Serengeti and NgoroNgoro game parks - all in aid of the International Year of the Child...
6 weeks with the army on exercise in Canada, including various live-firing exercises and an expedition to the Rockies. I was 17 and missed a fortnight's school at the end of the summer term, including the year end exams. How chuffed was I.
I had a fantastic time, so much so that it cured me of my original intention to join the army : I'd done the fun bit and realised that the rest of it was thumb twiddling in Aldershot (or BAOR in those days).
Barmouth, 1963.
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
Paris - 1968 - an absolute riot :D
Dagenham Ford factory 1988 :D
Paris 1959. I was14. I met Brigitte Bardot and she said 'Come back wiz me to my flat and you can 'ave me'.
Something about the way she said ' 'ave me' made me suspicious and I said 'Do you know a Mr Teatime?'
She said 'Oh, 'im. He ees a dirty sod.'
That put me off so I made an excuse and left. I said 'I've got to go to the Gare du Nord to meet the Golden Arrow'.
It wasn't a lie. I was a trainspotter.
This is me and her. I was 'old for my age' and plucked my eyebrows. I still trainspot as well.
Graham
When you say 'trip'... :)Paris 1959. I was14. I met Brigitte Bardot and she said 'Come back wiz me to my flat and you can 'ave me'.
Something about the way she said ' 'ave me' made me suspicious and I said 'Do you know a Mr Teatime?'
She said 'Oh, 'im. He ees a dirty sod.'
That put me off so I made an excuse and left. I said 'I've got to go to the Gare du Nord to meet the Golden Arrow'.
It wasn't a lie. I was a trainspotter.
This is me and her. I was 'old for my age' and plucked my eyebrows. I still trainspot as well.
Graham
:lol: :lol: Sadly, the only thing I got up was the Eiffel Tower - and that wasn't right to the top stage (mean working class git upbringing)When you say 'trip'... :)Paris 1959. I was14. I met Brigitte Bardot and she said 'Come back wiz me to my flat and you can 'ave me'.
Something about the way she said ' 'ave me' made me suspicious and I said 'Do you know a Mr Teatime?'
She said 'Oh, 'im. He ees a dirty sod.'
That put me off so I made an excuse and left. I said 'I've got to go to the Gare du Nord to meet the Golden Arrow'.
It wasn't a lie. I was a trainspotter.
This is me and her. I was 'old for my age' and plucked my eyebrows. I still trainspot as well.
Graham
:D :)
Sunderland power station 1975, the same year it was given notice of closure. Not strictly a school trip as such but a 'careers visit'. As it was the only place I visited with any school I'm counting it!
I was one of three kids growing up in a small terraced house in 1970's Sunderland with just Mum (who held down a full time job) bringing us up. It couldn't have been much fun for her, and there was never any money for school trips.
To her credit we never felt like we any particular hardships or went without anything (although with the benefit of hindsight I see that we did), and I look back at that time with fond memories.
As I recall the power station visit was cold, dirty and uninspiring. :)
My senior class trip was to Disney World Orlando. That was in 1977.
I grew up in Switzerland. The best school trip I had was actually to the UK, to London and Oxford. I loved every bit of it. The one trip I regret not doing was a month of intense ice hockey training in Canada. Can't remember why I didn't go in the end, but that meant lagging behind in the game relative to my mates, which was a pity.
We never got school trips, well we got to go out of school for sport, mainly because the playing field (red blaze) was deemed too unsafe due to several injuries.
I do laugh nowadays, every year schools seem to take the kids away to Asia, Europe, the US and so on, i'm guessing it's more for the teachers than the pupils :lol:
Wimbledon tennis in 1981.Brilliant.Got to see Nastase,Pam Shriver,Mark Cox,an astonishing thunderstorm,and a cuddle with Alison Rook on the coach home.We had a great sports teacher who also organised a trip to Lords in '81 as well v the Aussies.Happy Days.
Sheffield! To see the steelworks! :roll:
1986 Florida. Disney, Sea World the works! To be fair it was supposed to be Russia but Chernobyl intervened and the school wanted to ease our disappointment :)
In every cloud there's a silver lining, I suppose :) .
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