Students in Year 7 and 8 enjoyed an over night stay at Castleton activity centre in the Peak District, Derbyshire during the first 2-weeks of November. Students from the Academy went on two seperate occasions with their house groups and participated in many fun activities during their stay.

Upon their return students gave their reviews on their 2-day experience:

At Castleton my favourite activity was Archery. I chose this as my favourite activity because it was enjoyable and we had plenty of time to master it. We had a bow and arrow and we were shown how to hold it properly There were targets which had a Vikings head on, and our challenge was to hit the target for starters, but some people were that good they managed to hit the Viking in the eye!

To put the arrow on the bow you had to clip the end of the arrow onto the string and make the arrow level. However, before you were allowed to fire you had to make sure you had protection on your arm so that the string wouldn't whip your skin. Once you had done that you could fire!

My favourite part of Archery was hitting the Viking in the head and it was a great shot! They could of made Archery even better if there would have been a number target or if we could of used wooden arrows instead of plastic ones!  Archery was great though and most students enjoyed it.

The rooms were very basic and the hard part was when we had to make our own beds, trust me that is something I wouldn't like to do everyday! However it was made easier with the help off Mr Noble. The beds were very comfy but I could of done with more pillows!

Sean Leyland-Raine

At Castleton my favourite activity was Karaoke because it got everyone dancing, singing and joining in all the fun! Even the shy people who would not normally get involved were up singing and having a good time. We all sung songs from Queen to Katy Perry. Sean and Ms Williams together sung 'Summer Lovin' from the film Grease.

Ashleigh, Paige, Chloe and myself sung 'Don't Stop Me Now' by Queen and everybody sung along, even the teachers! Jake sung 'Halleluiah'. Some people even sung a song that they had made up themselves. Chloe was amazing; she sung, 'These Boots are made for Walking', James and Mr Noble sung 'You got a friend in me', from Toy Story but Mr Noble didn't know all the words which left James singing it on his own! Adam sung 'We Will Rock You', by Queen,Paige and Natasha started to sing 'Hot and Cold' but they were a little shy so Judyta and I sang along with them for support.

 Our room was bigger than everyone's which we had to sleep in, though we were rightnext to the teacher's so we couldn't be too loud. In our room there was Hannah, Amber, Megan, Judyta and myself.

Holly Neary-King

During the GPS I enjoyed walking around the area we were in and following the directions. I enjoyed working in a team with my group. We went into a church graveyard that was really spooky and people were saying there were ghosts from the graves and that the dead haunt you if you stand on their grave stones. The graveyard had a very strong disgusting smell, but overall it was fun and  it was good to see the river moving along and everyone taking part and enjoying themselves. We found the gorge and when we found it, there were burnt pumpkins on the grass on top of a hill.

Some people enjoyed using the radio to talk to the other team. Next time I think different children should use the radio and GPS so that everyone gets a turn to use it.Everyone enjoyed walking past the fish and chip shop because we were all hungry. We asked if we could get some but the shop is only open Saturday's and Sunday's. It wasn't fair when the teachers in the other group stopped and went into the shopto buy something. However apart from this the GPS activity was fun!

The best thing about the GPS was exploring different places we could see and following the GPS even though we didn't know where we were going. One of the worst things about it was the weather being extremely cold, which was not good seeing as everyone was shaking. Also out of all of it the weather was the worst thing so I hope next year the people that go to Castleton will have good weather.

While I was at Castleton I kept hoping the weather would be good the next day so it wouldn't be cold, but it didn't change at all. I did enjoy some of the GPS but not all of it because at times we got lost so we couldn't figure out the problem in the task we were given. This meant we had to talk through the radio to the other group because their teacher had already done the GPS activity before. When we didn't really know where we were going we were very close to where the answer was.I got really worried when we didn't know where we were as lots of things were going through my mind at that point. Since the other group already had a teacher who had done the activity he already knew all the answers, so I think next time a different teacher should do it.

Qiqi Young

At Castleton my most enjoyed activity was climbing Mam tor, a  hill near Castleton.This is because I like big walks and getting muddy. Subsequently, five boys including me went to the back of the walk and made up a song. We spent four hours on the walk. My favourite part was running up the hill and splashing pratically everyone with mud. We came across a material, it looked like slate but you could crush it with your bare hands.

On the way back to Castleton we walked about 1.5 miles on the road back. It wasn't the hardest walk I have done, but it was tough.

When we got back we were covered in mud and had to have a shower and then get dressed then we had 1.5 hours to chill in the Common room and the Quiet room and some other places.

It was then tea time and the most popular food was sausage and mash. I didn't like the mash so I just had sausage and beans. 

The next day we missed out a whole session because a man called Richard was late. That meant that we couldn't do the GPS challenge. This was one of the I was really looking forward to completing.