Residential Visits

At Longlands, we believe that the key to a successful school residential visit is to ensure we offer our learners challenging new experiences in stimulating environments they may not normally encounter.

With holiday and leisure providers becoming more and more diverse in terms of the types of activities they are able to offer children, our challenge is to give the children something truly unique which will help to create life-long memories and gain valuable, practical skills and experience.

Currently we offer a 2 night / 3 day residential visit for our children in Year 5 and, costs permitting, a 4 night / 5 day trip for those in Year 6. The Year 5 trip traditionally happens in the first half term of Year 5 and is designed to build confidence and teamwork by engaging in predominantly land-based activities; whilst the Year 6 trip usually occurs sometime within the final term of Year 6 and acts as a culmination of the children's time here at Longlands.

Since 2015 we have been reviewing our provision for school residential visits; and it is with great pleasure that in 2018 we can say we have established an overall programme that compliments both trips and targeting at building the confidence required for children who are progressing into upper KS2 and eventually on to secondary school.

Following previous trips to PGL Liddington, since September 2018 our Year 5 trip have taken place at the Rock UK Summit Centre in Trelewis, South Wales. Here the children will undergo 3 days of activities including caving, climbing, gorge walking and orienteering all in the beautiful surroundings of the southern welsh valleys. The centre itself has benefitted from a £4 million pound refit designed to enhance some already truly outstanding facilities. The local area is steeped in history and served as hub for mining in that particular part of Wales in years gone by and this offers our children an alternative view of life in Britain outside of our local environment.

To find out more about Rock UK Summit Centre please clink on the link below:

For the children in Year 6, we are thrilled to be returning to the UKSA centre based at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in June 2024. With Cowes being recognised worldwide as a leading destination for sailing and water sports the children of Longlands will get to undertake a range of different water based activities including dinghy sailing, paddle boarding, windsurfing and keel boating under the watchful eye of instructors from one of the country’s foremost sailing youth charities. Designed to complement both the swimming training that the children will have undertaken earlier in KS2 and to build upon the land-based activities and challenges from Year 5, our Year 6 residential visit provides opportunities to engage in a truly inspirational experience in an environment in direct contrast to that they will have experienced in Year 5.

For more information about the UKSA please click on the link below or take a look at some of the pictures from previous visits:

We are honoured that Longlands has been chosen to feature in the UKSA's impact report brochure.  Please click the link below to read about our experiences (page 5).

Blogs

To get more of a flavour of what life is like on either a Year 5 or Year 6 residential visit please feel free to visit any of the blogs that have been produced from trips over the last couple of years, which can be found below. Blogs are updated both before, during and after the trip has taken place and help to give those back at home an insight into what the children are doing whilst they are away. Here you will also find the blogs and any relevant information for both of our upcoming trips.