Ski Trip Updates – March 2024

Final Ski Update

Pupils enjoyed their last day on the slopes today 😀 comment of the day was ‘I just want to stay in the mountains a little bit longer’ Reflecting on where we started on the nursery slopes, the progress is outstanding. The vast majority of the group were complete beginners having never skied before, and today they looked so at ease in the mountains, flying around with so much confidence, control and speed, not to mention the huge smiles on their faces and the lovely camaraderie and support between the groups – ‘yeeeah haw’ My absolute favourite moment of the week was when lots of groups just happened to end up in the same place at the top of a red run, and the black group happened to be passing at super sonic speed! – all of the other groups clapped and waved as they passed. The pupils in the black group then stopped slightly further down the mountain and waited for each of the other groups to pass them, and as they did gave them the biggest cheer and bash sticks as they all passed. This was all spontaneously led by the pupils and so wonderful to see the support and care they had for each other. Instructors handed out ski awards at the end of the day and many pictures were taken to remember the fun. We then handed all our ski gear in before a last trip to the town area for some souvenir shopping. Back at the hotel we had a lovely evening meal followed by some praise and awards for all their efforts and brilliance this week. We have seen in particular such resilience and kindness on the slopes, with pupils supporting and helping each other becoming the norm – so much so that our pupils were even seen stopping to help skiers not even within our groups when they noticed someone had fallen. We had both ski instructors, our ski reps and the owner of the hotel want to talk to the group today and say how well they had done. We are now all packed up and ready to go in the morning. Early to bed as we have an early start at 5am. Please watch the twitter feed for travel updates and accurate eta.

Third Ski Day

Wow, what progress this afternoon. So lovely to see so many groups exploring the mountain and travelling in beautiful ski snakes – the pictures can’t explain how beautiful the cloud inversion was today. So many smiling faces and proud pupils this evening of their achievements on blue and red slopes. We are seeing lots now able to complete plough-parallel turns – their speed, control and confidence has increased so much. Everyone went up the main gondola to the top of the mountain today to see the view and take some pictures. This evening we are being treated to some karaoke singing and completing our reflections wall.

Final ski day to look forward to tomorrow then tidy, pack and an early night before we travel home.

Second Ski Day ⛷️

Fantastic day today. Beautiful clear blue skies and sunshine to ski in – perfect ski conditions as described by one of our ski instructors. All pupils skied their first blue run this afternoon, huge amounts of resilience shown, with everyone making good progress. Students enjoyed a lovely lunch on the slopes, and even shared some frittes from the slope restaurant. Quote of the day ‘we can actually do it, we can actually ski today!’ as things started to fall into place and pupils gained in confidence. So many smiley faces and lots of laughs as steeper slopes are proving more of a challenge and causing some comical falls in the snow.

We are excited for our gelato this evening in the town area and another day’s skiing tomorrow.

First Ski Day

Arriving at the top of the gondola today with all pupils in ski kit and seeing the snow properly for the first time in the week genuinely bought a tear to my eye today. It’s always a special moment but it meant so much more this morning knowing the effort and kindness from so many people that had gone in to making a ski day for all possible today. We are the talk of Pinzolo with locals, shop keepers and ski instructors asking about ‘the English school and the luggage’ as Bec a legend within the Ski Company raided local hotels for spares, and her contacts in the area, for their own personal ski gear, to find the last few pairs of salopettes we needed so that everyone was sorted.

Even better at lunch time to then receive a picture of all our cases that had arrived at the hotel and return to them this afternoon. All the pupils wanted was pyjamas and pants – now enough about luggage!

All ski groups started on the nursery slopes learning to control speed and turn before moving on the a 2nd nursery slope after lunch time. A few groups today did their first chair lift and blue run and more groups tomorrow will do this in the morning. They are progressing so well and we have seen such teamwork and support for each other. They had such energy this evening and had clearly all had a fantastic day with lots of stories about their groups adventures being shared with each other over dinner.

This evening we did a torch light walk and spoke through our challenges and reflections – my request of them was to aim to notice things they or others were doing that was making a difference and thank people for it, as well as pick something they found a challenge that they wanted to aim to overcome by the end of the week. Some lovely conversations were had on our walk this evening.

Looking forward to another fab day tomorrow 😀

Day 1

We have had a great day in Pinzolo and have taken part in a ski fitting session. We then watched an ice hockey match, completed a scavenger hunt, had picnic lunch and then some ice-skating. Students have had a fantastic day 🙂

To update on the luggage situation – all students and staff have tracking numbers for their luggage. We are liaising with BA and the Ski Company to locate all luggage and transport it to our hotel in the quickest amount of time. BA are aware of the nature of the visit and have marked the issue as high priority.

Fantastic news is that luggage or not, all students will be skiing tomorrow – the Ski Company are transporting hire clothing for staff and students to us by the morning, to enable a full day of skiing, and for us to use for the remainder of the visit. Ski days will be slightly lengthened each day to make up for most of the lost hours skiing today.

Rest assured, we are doing everything we can to ensure your child has the best trip 🙂 They are having great fun and certainly developing their resilience for challenge along the way. They have all been absolutely amazing and we are very proud of them all.

Sat 2nd March – Travel Day

Wow, well what a first day. I have to say having run this visit for 17 yrs, today was a first. Pupil’s face many challenges this week and one of our educational aims of the visit is to develop resilience in the face of challenge. Pupil’s certainly did that yesterday when we arrived at the baggage claim at the airport, to find that all of our luggage (apart from 4) had not boarded the plane with us, and was still in Heathrow. When we finally arrived at the hotel with some very tired, hungry but still smiling pupils I spent some time telling them how incredibly proud I was already, of all of them, for the way they handled quite a difficult and stressful situation. We are now awaiting British Airways response and I will update on the baggage situation as soon as I can. Plans have been adjusted slightly for our first day and pupils will have ice Skating and a scavenger hunt around the local area as well as fitting of ski boots and skis, with the plan of lengthening the following ski days slightly. The hotel and surrounding area is beautiful and The Ski Company are on the case!

Mrs Currie