What a fantastic opportunity it was to go for a half-term break to Spain for netball and tennis with 55 students from Years 9 and 10. We enjoyed beautiful weather and the tennis players had exceptional tennis coaching by top coaches at a wonderful club with clay, concrete and padel ball courts. The players also had the opportunity to try padel with one of the leading coaches and players in Europe! We hope for a padel court at school soon!
The netball teams spent the majority of their time in Gibraltar training and playing matches against local opposition at an indoor facility in the centre of Gibraltar Town. Five netball teams took part in mixed age groups against club sides. The competition was fast and furious with excellent progress and performance from all. The dolphin tour, seeing the monkeys and the high ropes were the highlights of the social calendar.
Each day started with an early, but delicious hot breakfast, which set us up for the long day ahead. We travelled to Gibraltar on Tuesday and Thursday, to train and then play matches against local teams. We were split into five teams, playing with students from Year 10 and Year 9 which was a great way to meet and make new friends! The matches were very competitive and it was so nice to have everyone supporting each other when we were playing. We won and lost some matches, but it was an amazing fun experience, and to play against a team from another country was very cool.
On Wednesday morning we divided into four teams, each captained by one of the teachers and played a capture the flag tournament, Mrs Sillence’s team was victorious! We then cooled down in the hotel swimming pool. In the afternoon we escaped to the Treetops, which was a bit like Go Ape, but with different levels to complete! Some of the levels were super scary… We then went bowling and some of us were better than others – Miss Harris was particularly good at it!
We have so many more highlights from the trip such as dolphin watching and seeing the monkeys at the Rock of Gibraltar and getting ice creams.
We made some great long-lasting memory with each other; it was an amazing trip!
Ella, Rania, Marnie and Phoebe (Year 9)
