Natural World Discovery (Form 5 Residential Trip)
At Margam Discovery Centre Form 5 were immersed in the natural world, taking in its sights, sounds and smells, and building their confidence, communication and team-working skills on their residential trip to the coastal plain and southern slopes of Mynydd Margam. Read more of their adventures from Raina, one of our young reporters who enjoyed the trip.
By Raina
Each year, Year 5 go on a residential trip to Margam in the south of Wales. However, we haven’t been able to go for three years! It was an amazing opportunity for us to experience the beautifully scenic sights of Wales and for us to learn some interesting geographical facts.
On the day that we got there we went for an incredible 5.7 mile hike. The sun was shining and our legs were working extremely hard. We saw a 200 year old castle and learned about its history. We also discovered how oranges were found upon a sunken boat, called The Caesar, and that’s when a huge orangery was built which was used to grow 100s of orange trees. We then tidied our rooms for our room inspections and to collect butterflies (which you get if you do something good), or toads (if you do something like walk in front of the teacher, or leave your towel on the floor). At the end of the week whichever room had been awarded the most butterflies would win a prize.
We slept with 4-6 children in each room and we woke up at quarter past seven every morning. The next day we weren’t so fortunate with the weather. We went down to breakfast and then got fully geared up with our waterproofs and wellies. We visited the River Ogmore and went from the source all the way to the mouth, where it joined to the sea. We measured the flow rate of the river and we had several stops where we’d investigate the changes of the river as we went further along. It was a tiring day so after we had dinner we went to our rooms to rest and chat for a while.
Thankfully the next day the weather was in our favour. We went down to Dunraven Bay and learnt about different sea defences such as groynes and sea walls. Then we went down to a beach where we had a sandcastle competition and ice cream.
On the morning of our last day we did some orienteering and we used our map skills to find clues and use them to decipher a word. We also went on a beautiful tour before having lunch and hopping on the coach ready to go back to school and see our parents. Despite the lows of the weather it all ended on a high and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.