School trip to the farm school !

As a reward for my hard work and commitment, I was given the opportunity to go on the Yr1 Primary school trip to La Salle in El Escorial. The duration of the trip was two nights and three days - what a nice break from work! My students are only 6-7 years old and they're already going on overnight trips... brave children!

Wednesday, 27th April. 
The day began as usual at 9:15am. The teachers and students waited outside infant school for the school bus and for everyone to arrive. We departed shortly after 9:45am and headed off to the farm school. The journey was very short; maybe 20 minutes away from the school. We drove higher and higher towards the mountains and the views were beautiful... everything looked so peaceful - a complete contrast to the Madrid city life!

Upon arrival, we were greeted by the monitors of the resort who introduced themselves to the children and took them off our hands. They were led to their dormitories, where the boys lived in one room and the girls in the one next door. At this time, we were also given a tour to our accommodation. We stayed in the main building just 2 minutes away from the kids'. Here, I shared a room with my two teachers in a large 3 single bed room. We had our own bathroom just opposite our room.

Because it was the first day, we didn't really do much. We had breakfast shortly after we arrived and settled in and then we walked around the resort to see what the kids were up to. The food service was great! We had so much to eat during breakfast, lunch and dinner. I guess it was a nice change from the food that I have at the school canteen ^^'. The kids were doing activities with the mentors and we relaxed.

After lunch, Mako and I went to visit the Royal Palace in El Escorial. We went for a tour inside it which was very interesting - lots of tourists. The weather wasn't great, it was cold and windy... but nevertheless, we still had a good time. After the tour, we walked to the pretty streets of the town to find a café for a drink (tea of course). It was really nice to relax with my teacher and to discuss other things other than our students or work!

Time flew by very quickly so we headed back to the farm school by taxi. We freshened up and got ready for dinner. As expected, we looked after our kids during lunch and dinner - ensuring they were eating their food and checking up on them. We always had our food after the kids had theirs... so once they were all finished and moved onto their next activity, we had our food.

By 10pm, the children were very tired. Many of them wanted to sleep and some wanted to carry on doing activities! ^^' they slept in bunk beds in one room. It was really cute because they all wanted a kiss before going to bed and they asked if I could sleep on the spare bed in their dorm!! After putting the kids to sleep, we went back to our room to get some kip.

Thursday, 28th April.
I was woken up fairly early because of the animals just outside of our window (roosters, donkey, parrots). After getting ready, we went downstairs to assist the kids during breakfast. Again, they had a day full of fun activities - the best thing was not having to look after them! After breakfast, we joined them on their little adventure walk. It was nice to walk into the countryside but it wasn't nice for my nose/throat! I have really bad hay fever so I was suffering a little bit but it was totally worth it :) the kids were doing activities that involved the 5 senses which was pretty suitable. When the kids went back to the farm school for lunch, Mako and I continued walking and went on a small hike. We walked through the countryside and saw some pretty beautiful views - well worth it again. It wasn't long until we turned around and went back for lunch :)

The rest of the day consisted in a lot of relaxing and lounging around. The internet/wifi was terrible so we couldn't do any work or surf the net. We had the opportunity to check the animals out; we saw peacocks, talking parrots, rabbits, ducks, pigs and more. We laughed so much when the parrot was talking to us and it actually started laughing as well...actual laughing. Sonia, Mako and I were laughing so much and I had tears coming out of my eyes!! ^^'

After dinner, the kids had a disco as it was their last night. We had dinner and had an hour to kill (well at least we thought we did) until the disco. We assumed the disco was at 10pm so we headed down at 10pm, only to find that the disco had finished and another school was having theirs! Turns out, our disco got pushed early because there were two schools to fit into one night. What a shame! We tucked the kids into bed again and went to sleep.

Friday, 29th April. 
Our last day! The day started off pretty cold and gloomy but eventually it warmed up and the sun came out to play. The kids finished their final activities where they made nature books by collecting leaves etc to put in them. Time flew by (doing nothing) and next thing we knew, it was time to go home! We left the resort at around 3:45pm and got back to school in no time where we waited for the parents to pick up the kids. By this time, the weather was beautiful and it was pretty hot.

Thank you. 
I'd like to thank SEK, my boss, my co-ordinators and my teachers for gifting me such a great 'prize'. It was such a nice getaway and I feel a lot closer to my teachers after spending a three days with them. I will continue to work hard for the remaining month and a half left of placement and I'm very thankful for everything they have done for me.

Hard work definitely pays off, guys! So don't ever slack!

- Tiffany