ACTIVITIES DAY

Activities Day at St John’s Beaumont saw boys between Reception and Year 7 all take part in a variety of new activities on Friday 17th June. The purpose of this day was to introduce the boys to activities that they will in all likelihood never have tried before. We hope that by doing this we will continue to encourage them to develop the confidence to take risks and accept challenges of all types as they move up through the school.

Boys from the Nicholas Owen Block (Pre-Prep) took part in skipping lessons, with Year 1 and 2 also having a free swim session in our Pool, before everyone came together to watch a skipping demonstration by “Dan the Skipping Man”. Year 7 undertook the now traditional visit to Datchet Sailing Club, where they learnt the basics of sailing ahead of their being let loose on the Queen Mother reservoir after lunch.

Year 4 undertook a new activity which saw them having to make their way back to school, following a route that they’d planned, starting at the different drop off points around Virginia Water. In four groups, the boys were given a list of landmarks to visit, and photograph, on their way back to St John’s – upon their return to school, all within 45 minutes of each other, the boys proudly announced that they’d covered over 10 miles, but clearly they still possessed reserves of energy as they then played a game of football on the front field!

Years 3, 5 and 6 stayed at school, and rotated around a number of classroom, outside and sports centre based activities that included Animation workshops, Archery Tag and elastic band car racing.  Working in their year groups, each boy spent two hours learning about Stop-Motion animation, creating their own short movies in the process, using plasticine, paper cut-outs and simple drawings.

In their classes, every boy took part in Archery Tag, which is an Archery-based version of Paintball. Using rubber tipped arrows, the boys practiced shooting each other from behind different kinds of targets… needless to say, the teachers got involved too! Bellarmine competed in the annual Bellarmine 1 vs. Bellarmine 2 cricket match during the afternoon, and in its place, Years 5 and 6 took part in orienteering activities around the school site and made elastic-band powered racing cars.

The day was a great success, and all of the boys embraced the chance to try something new, either at school, or off-site.