PGL 2022 - Day 3

7:00am, in the PGL dorms, not a sound to be heard. Today was one of those days where we had to physically wake the children. However, it didn’t take long for them to shake off their grogginess and ask how long until breakfast!

After eating a mountain of food, we were all ready to make a start to another fun-filled day. The activities that intrigued all of the children was canoeing – an activity that has caused a feud between teacher and pupil dating back many years, but more on that later.

Before we headed out to our first morning activity, there was loud pop music blasting through the PGL centre and Amelia put a smile on our faces – “That’s on my mum’s hot tub playlist.”

The first session was ‘Robot Wars’ which consisted of the whole class breaking up into smaller groups to construct the best robot. The children gathered materials and chose one of their teammates to build around. They had to come up with a unique design, name and purpose. The children showed great teamwork.

For the second session, the groups split up to either go to the giant swing or high ropes course. Firstly, the high ropes. The children, yet again, set out their own personal targets, before attempting the course. Some children braved it all the way to the highest point whilst others, even though frightened to the core, climbed the ladder and walked along the first wooden bar. Mrs Hall was incredibly proud of all the children in her group.

Now, the giant swing. Mr Chan accompanied Ms McGibney’s group as he knew that puling the rope to raise the swing for 3 people could be problematic. He had to raise the swing ten times in total with supposedly the help of the children not on the swing. They will claim they did help when the next see you, but the techniques that were involved were interesting: using only one hand to pull, using no hands to pull and staring at the rope from the side. Nonetheless, everyone who attempted the giant swing reached the top and even had two goes! The screams of joy could be heard around the whole of Winmarleigh.

It was time to refuel. Lunchtime. Food was consumed, plans were quietly being put in place for the ‘Canoe Battle 2022’. These children have been plotting against their own teacher for years. It was time to execute their plan – lead by none other than Oliver Dowson. It was claimed that Mr Chan had pushed his sister into the lake in the last residential which was based on loose photo evidence and 12 eye-witnesses. He would have to wait until the last afternoon session to end the Dowson and Chan feud.

The first group of canoers were met with many ducklings in the lake. In twos, the children took to the lake with Ms McGibney and awaited Mr Chan to join before the splashing commenced. Mia and Willow played hide in the reeds for 10 minutes then tried to join the group before capsizing. The first causalities of the day. Mylo and Rowan quickly paddled away after making eye-contact with the teachers. They didn’t get far before being soaked from head to foot! Toby and Stefan thought they could avoid a good splashing by being on the other side of the lake – they were wrong, very wrong! Towards the end of this session, we were all wet so we decided to take a lovely dip in the lake and splash each other.

It was time for the other group now. In this group, we had a few pairs play, ‘What’s in the reeds?’ as well and also ‘How many times can we just spin around?’. Kaitlin and Sofia thought they could sneak up on Mr Chan and Oliver (keep your enemies closer and all that), but alas, a complete soaking awaited them. Sofia and Blake also thought they would try and be clever, but no! Splash splash! Now it was time, for the feud to finally be put to bed. One side of the canoe stood Oliver, on the other, a poor, defenseless Mr Chan. The canoe started to shake. And in went Mr Chan! How did he go in first if he is a pusher? Nevertheless, the feud is now over!

We had a quiz show as our evening activity. It was Yellow vs Blue. Funky challenges and 1:1 battles. George and Amelia had to put tights, with balls at the bottom, on their heads and try a knock over a cone. Other challenges involved elephant masks, hoops, toothbrushes, caps, balls and hoops.

Another scorching and exhausting day. Many memories made and many dreams to be had!