Climbing over rope bridges, building shelters, shooting arrows, starting fires to cook on, working together to complete tricky challenges, praying and reflecting, overcoming fears and making new friends... No, not a description of the next instalment of the Hunger Games but just a few of the highlights at last week’s residential for our new Year 7 students.

Coming away so early in their time at Wren is a real challenge. It is also a fantastic opportunity to make new friends and to begin to build a strong sense of community. As staff, we begin to get to know students as young people, rather than simply through the lens of our academic subject, and we begin to recognise the variety of gifts and talents they have.

Our Chaplain's top three memories:

1.    Sitting by the camp fire with a small group of students, silently watching the embers glowing after an evening reflection. If we had not sent them in I am sure they would have stayed there for an hour enjoying the peace and solitude...

2.    Watching new friendships formed on the low ropes as teams cooperated with each other and gave each other the confidence to keep going...

3.    Being told by a Year 7 who had been rather tearful in her first few days that being at Wren now felt like they had a massive new family.