In the very early hours of Saturday 9th March, 19 students from Year 6 at Norwich High School for Girls set off for a ski trip to the French Alps. After a hold up on the motorway we finally made it to the airport and caught our flight to Lyon. On our arrival, we met up with another GDST school and took a coach up the mountains to Les Menuires where we arrived at our hotel. We met the two other GDST schools who had arrived earlier, had dinner and then went for a much-needed early night’s sleep.
By Mrs Watson, Year 6 Form Teacher
We awoke the next morning to a fresh layer of snow and after a good breakfast, we spent the morning playing in the snow and having snowball fights. We then went off to explore the town, stopping to do some shopping and buy souvenirs on the way.
The next day we set off for our morning ski lesson, where we were greeted by our friendly ski instructors from the École du Ski Français. The students were then split into eleven different ability groups across the four GDST schools, which were each accompanied by a teacher, and we set off for our first ski lessons; three hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. The weather was a bit overcast but that didn’t dampen the girl’s enthusiasm and they came back full of stories to tell each other at the end of the day.
For the rest of the week’s lessons, we were lucky enough to have near perfect ski conditions – dazzling sunshine, blue skies and powdery snow. The improvement in skiing ability of all of the groups was impressive, with the beginners confidently tackling green and blue runs by the end of the week, whilst the intermediate and advanced groups perfected their parallel turns.
All the students were presented with a commemorative pin badge and a booklet, which recognised their skiing ability at the end of their four days of lessons. We were fortunate enough to have many different runs to discover and everyone loved their ski experience.
Although we managed to cram in lots of skiing, there were plenty of opportunities in the evening to get to socialise with our sister schools and participate in some après-ski activities too. The students had a getting to know you quiz, disco and talent show.
“We were incredibly proud of the resilience that our girls displayed through some quite difficult times on the trip, and it was lovely to hear that they were looking forward to going skiing again soon.”
Pupil Comments
“I loved the chair lifts and being able to ski over the bumps. I thought sharing a dorm with my friends was great and being able to wake up to a beautiful view of the Alps every morning. I wish I could go again next year!” Claudia
“My favourite thing about this trip was just being surrounded by so much snow and I loved playing in the snow with everyone.” Evie
“The best bit about the holiday was skiing with my friends. It was super fun and no one minded how good you were just as long as you had a nice time. We all had a great school trip. The resort was beautiful. 5*” Emily B
“I really enjoyed the ski trip, especially the pixel run and the disco.” Emily H
“I really enjoyed going on the chair lifts to the top of the mountain and the disco was fun too.” Pip
“If you fell over there was always someone there to pick you up again.” Year 6 student
“The thing I most enjoyed on the ski trip was going to the top of the mountain on the chair lifts, looking at the view and skiing down doing turns.” Sophie