A few photos from group 2′s activities – hopefully more to come! From Miss Abell
Tuesday 27th March-A beautiful morning after a lovely night’s sleep.
Survival Day-Click link to see a video of the herbivores being chased by the carnivores at the start of the game.
As we prepare for our survival day, we offered the opportunity to the boys to say a little message and to discuss their best memories. Here’s a little message from the volunteers:
Monday 26th March-Gloriously sunny
11.30pm, the bells tolled and sleeping boys were evacuated from their warm comfy beds into the fire assembly point. After a quick count the boys were sent back to their dreams, after we learnt the cause of the false alarm…. a spray of deodorant from a 6th former from the other school staying in the other courtyard.
Another glorious morning welcomed us as we awoke naturally ready for another breakfast. Today’s activities would be River studies and moorland investigation.
Activity group 1-Moorland Investigation
Firstly, we dressed some volunteers in adaptation features, water creatures have developed in order to survive at the bottom of the stream.
After a delightful drive through the beautiful picturesque village of Liversham we found ourselves at the top of the moor. We discussed what a national park is and why it is important to protect them.
Next we walked down the valley looking for our water source.
At the bottom we had a talk about the type of creatures we would be able to find in the water and learned the technique of kick sampling.
Some of the boys in action ‘kick sampling in front of the net which is located a few feet downstream.
Once captured, we then began sorting and classifying our water creatures, making notes of any adaptation features the creature had.
We then walked uphill to the top of the moor, where we discovered remains of an ancient settlement.
Finally, we played a game of fox and grouse; as you can see one or two boys found this game pretty tiring!
After dinner (soup, roast pork, and chocolate sponge) the boys then went to their evening class. Here, we used microscopes to look at the creatures we had caught a little more closely, before drawing and labelling them in our books. The creatures were then released into the brook at the bottom of the road.
Group 2-River Study. This is a repeat of what group 1 did yesterday, please read Sunday’s report for what we got up to, however here’s a few pictures of their river study day.
As we near our departure, we have the famous ‘survival game’ to look forward to. The boys are split into groups, herbivore, lower carnivore, top carnivore and disease.They have to survive in the woodland by feeding (Herbivores feed from food stations, carnivores hunt the herbivores etc. until finally the humans (the teachers) are released, so much to look forward to still. The boys have been fantastic and have had an amazing time. Hopefully the blog has allowed you to share in their experience. I hope to add a video later this evening capturing the boys best memories.
Sunday 25th March-Sunny again!
Another good night’s sleep, and another hearty breakfast prepared us for our 3rd day. Activity Group One AGO headed off into the hills to complete their river study, whilst Activity Group Two AGT visited Flamborough Head for a coastal study and bird watch.
Group Ago-We visited three very different river sites to determine the difference in depth, width and speed at the three locations. This involved getting pretty wet as we had to wade in to collect our measurements.
First we measured the width of each river using a tape measure to measure from bank to bank.
We also measured the depth at different points across the river and collected rocks (looking at their size, shape & whether they were rounded or pointy) to see if erosion is different at each location.
We also undertook a velocity test of the river using a high quality floating device (a dog biscuit!) and recorded how long it took to travel 5 metres. Using all of these calculations we were able to discover the differences at the three locations.
The first location was near the source of the river at Helwath Beck, next was a little downstream at Jugger Howe Beck and finally, much further downstream at the River Derwent.
Tonight’s activity involved drawing a cross section of each river, working out the velocity of the three rivers and labelling some of the key features we identified along the way.
Noah thought the day was excellent, Joe commented it was a fun and wet, whereas Rishi thought the day was fun, but a little messy!
Activity group 2, visited the beach to learn about coastal erosion. Arches, stacks, stumps, caves and a wave cut platform were just some of the features identified.
Coastal Features. How to remember them:
Boys Sketching
We learned how each feature is formed and afterwards we had a little time to do some rock pool discovery work. We found a host of different sea creatures and identified them all.
Saturday 24th March 2012-Sunny Saturday!!!
After a peaceful night the boys awoke to a glorious morning of sunshine and smiles. A sumptuous breakfast followed, to leave the catering staff with little to do, with only a stack of clean plates to wash up!







After breakfast, the boys split up into their two activity groups:
Activity Group One AGO drove off to Flamborough Head for their Seashore Visit whilst Activity Group Two AGT were Moorland Explorers for the day.
AGO made their way down from the car park to the ‘wave cut platform’ (see-I was listening boys) to look at the various stages of coastal erosion.

Once we finally reached the bottom we had a look in caves…

under arches…

and of course rocks!

We then had a fantastic hour finding as many creatures as possible in the plethora of rock pools…



And this is what we found…


AGT set off to Levisham moor to study how creatures adapt to living in a stream. Our two volunteers dressed up with items which represented features our river creatures needed to survive.

After a short scenic ride we were soon off exploring. The trail took us along a dry V shaped valley, plenty of scrambling over trees and branches.
We stopped to look at the insects and creatures we found in the river. George managed to capture a bull head fish to the delight of everyone. Not big enough for supper though!

In the afternoon we walked over the moor and on our way saw a Bronze Age settlement and an ancient burial ground.
The day on the moors finished with an exciting hide and seek game of Fox and Grouse. See if you can spot our expert hiders!

Friday 23rd March 2012: First Day of Fun!
After leaving NHJS slightly behind schedule (as Mr Jones needed to double check that we had enough chess sets on board), we left Nottingham to reach the service station surprisingly on time.
You can see from the photograph below how happy the boys were to get back on board following our short break at Ferry Bridge, especially as we had so much to look forward to!

Upon our arrival at Kirby Grindalythe the boys quickly settled into their allocated rooms and had a quick tour of the centre, including the washing facilities, common room and the all important recycling station!

After lunch (ensuring our waste was deposited into the correct receptacle), the boys undertook a training exercise before our orienteering activity in the centre’s grounds.
The training obviously worked extremely well and congratulations go to:
Activity Group One:
3rd place: ‘Ryderz’ (Mark, Patrick & Barnaby) 17 checkpoints completed

2nd place: ‘$hooting $tarz’ (Will, Ben & John) 18 checkpoints completed

1st place: ‘$masherz’ (Sebby, Eduardo & Joe) 19 checkpoints completed

Activity Group Two:
Joint 1st place: ‘Tomska’ (Toby & Josh) & ‘TheSteakers’ (George & Skye)

Following orienteering we had a very informative tour of Kirby Grindalythe before our evening meal which was well received by boys and staff alike!
The last activity (as the boys work hard, even when they’re not at school!) was a classroom based session for both activity groups to prepare for the delights of tomorrow.


Quotes of the day:
‘This is the best trip I’ve ever been on’ Mark.
‘This is the best soup I’ve ever tasted’ Joshua.














































