Trips & Visits

 
R ichmond is ideally situated to allow us to make use of the many historic sites, museums, theatres and facilities of London and its surroundings.  All the girls are taken on regular trips to support their work in the classroom, extend their knowledge and provide challenges as well as new experiences.  We regularly visit the British Museum, Science Museum, Hindu Temple, Toy Museum, Hampton Court Palace, the Wallace Collection and many more and each year add different visits to our repertoire.

Many weeks we are welcoming a visitor to the school to play a different musical instrument, to explain about how the Police service works, to bring in artefacts from a country we are studying or to tell us about a charity, a profession or an event.  Many of these visitors are our parents and we welcome their involvement in the girls’ education.

Residential trips

All girls in the Upper School go away on a residential trip of a progressively longer duration, with the aim of linking it into a part of their work at school but more importantly, to develop independence, confidence and organisation.

Year 3 generally go for two nights to a PGL centre, Marchants Hill, nearby.  They will have two action packed days of outdoor adventures, team building and games.  They return glowing, having developed more self-confidence, independence and also had a great deal of fun.

Year 4 will spend two nights away and their trip links with their study of the Celts and Romans. Recently we have visited a reconstruction of an iron age settlement in Dorset where their girls have understood the importance of a hillfort and practised their own storming, have ground corn and made butter, made wattle and daub bricks, ploughed, minted coins and looked after rare breed livestock.

The intrepid spirit continues in Year 5 when the girls ‘go wild’ in the woods; building their own shelters and fires, tracking, learning first aid skills, climbing trees and lake swimming. The increase in confidence among the girls on their return is palpable.

Year 6 finish their time at the Old Vicarage with a week-long trip to a chateau in northern France to enable them to practise their French, visit the Normandy landing beaches and the Bayeux Tapestry and sample French markets. The accents vary but vocabulary increases noticeably.

A highlight for many girls in Years 4, 5, and 6 is the biennial week-long ski trip in the Easter holidays, which in recent years has been to Flogarida in Italy. As many as 50 girls and 10 staff and their partners have enjoyed the quiet slopes, excellent snow, delicious food and camaraderie. Swimming, skating, treasure hunts, talent shows and a disco have all added to a tremendous week.