High School: Residentials 2019

This year’s Residentials are as follows:

Year 7 will be visiting iCAMP Thailand in Kanchanaburi where activities taking place will include kayaking, archery, orienteering, a day at Sarasi Camp, a trip to the Thailand-Burma Railway Centre and much more. This was a new Residential last year, and last year’s Year 7 students arrived back at school very tired and happy at the end of the week. We are sure that this year’s Year 7 students will too.

Year 8 will be visiting Pranburi, staying at the Milford Paradise Resort. The trip will be organised by Wild Planet, who have nearly 20 years’ experience in running school trips and activities taking place will include scuba diving, climbing and abseiling, a beach clean, a trek in Sam Roi Yot National Park and much more. This is a repeat of our very successful Year 8 Residential from the last two years.

Year 9 will be visiting Kanchanaburi, staying at the Pung Waan Resort. The visit will be organised by CDR Adventure, a company based in Kanchanaburi with a great deal of experience of school trips and activities taking place will include a low ropes adventure course, kayaking on the River Kwai, hiking, raft building, archery, a navigation race and a trip to Hellfire Pass. This is also a repeat of a very successful Residential from the last two years.

Year 10 will be flying to Chiang Mai, camping for three nights in Muang Khong at  and staying at The Royal Ping Garden and Resort for the final evening. Like the Year 8 Residential, the visit will be organized by Wild Planet, a company with a great deal of experience of school trips, with activities taking place including camping, survival skills, team building, trekking, caving, rock climbing/abseiling, geocaching and a service activity in a local village. This is our oldest Residential, and my favourite of all the Residential locations that I have visited over the years.

Year 12 will be flying to Hanoi, in Vietnam, and then staying at Mai Chau Asia Ecolodge. The visit will be organized by Buffalo Tours and activities taking place will include trekking, cooking, embroidery, weaving, cycling and rafting, as well as service work in a local school. This is a repeat of last year’s very successful Year 12 Residential.

Residential week is a very important part of the High School curriculum, with each of the programmes offering a range of opportunities for personal and social development. Mr Andrew and I have visited the Year 7, 8, 9 and 10 Residentials over the last two years and know that these are all great Residentials and we, and the Heads of Year, have continued to work with the external providers to make them even better this year.

All parents should already have completed and returned the reply slips to their son/daughter’s Tutor, and will be invoiced for these trips with the Term 2 fees. As all but a few teachers will be accompanying residential visits that week, there will be no in-school provision and all students are expected to attend their scheduled trip. If there are exceptional circumstances that mean that your son/daughter is unable to attend, please contact their Head of Year.

As in previous years, we have published a summary of the Residential Costings in the High School Parents’ Handbook on Moodle. I have already spoken to members of the PTG’s High School Focus Group about these. As you can see, four of the five Residentials are at the same cost as last year or lower and I reassured the PTG that these Residentials, and all High School Enrichment Trips, are costed to break even, not make a profit. The other common question from parents is about the cost of flights, for the Year 10 and 12 Residentials. As I am sure that you will appreciate, booking over 100 tickets (180 for Year 10) is very different to booking one or two flights online.

Please contact your son/daughter’s Head of Year if you have any questions about their particular Residential.

As soon as we come back to school after half-term, we will start planning next year’s High School Residentials, for January 2020. If you too like to plan this far ahead, we have just added the 2019-2020 School Calendar to our website.

I look forward to seeing many of you at Friday’s High School International Day, and hope that you all have a restful and enjoyable half-term.

Roo Stenning
Head of High School

The school’s Google Calendars are on Moodle, via the very easy to remember http://calendar.standrews.ac.th/.