Year 5/6 London Residential 2012

To gain a broader understanding of multicultural and cultural Britain the children Year 5/6 spend four days in London every second year. During this residential, the children stay in Holland Park at the YHA, where they go to sleep every evening to Opera that is being sung backing onto the accomodation and where people pay up to £100 a ticket to go and see. Our children hear it for free. On returning from the residential in 2012, one child said to her parent “We went to sleep to Opera, it was magical.”

Other cultural experiences include spending a morning in the National Portrait Gallery in a Tudor workshop where they complete their own drawings based on a portrait.

The children also find the paintings they have used as inspiration for “Take One Picture” activities in class over the previous 2 years.

Before the children go to the theatre – in 2012  the children saw Wicked and in 2014 Lion King, they have Yum Cha in Chinatown.

Visiting Parliament is a highlight of the visit to London, the children get to meet their member of parliament.

In 2014, the children will be visiting Westminster Abbey and the British Museum, this is our first visit to their venues. The Natural History museum is a very popular place to visit and is on the timetable again.

After the residential in 2012, the children worked fedback on what went well and what we should change in 2014. They voted to not go back to the Science Museum, so that is off the list for 2014. Their favourite activity was going on the tube, so in 2014 the children will be going to London by train rather than bus for the full train and tube experience.