The Year 8 boys football team once again embarked on their annual tour to Jersey in the Channel Islands from Thursday 25^th to Saturday 27^th September.

The boys played against two local teams, Victoria College and De La Salle. It was an amazing experience for the team to travel to another part of the UK to play football, and they all enjoyed the opportunity.

Despite losing the first game to Victoria College 3-0, they fought back in the second match to win 7-3 vs De La Salle.

"We woke up on the Thursday morning ready to meet at school for 6:30 AM where we said our goodbyes to our parents, excited for the trip ahead of us. On arrival at the airport, we headed through security and then we took a team photo before we went off in groups of three or more looking in shops and having breakfast.

Once we landed in Jersey we went for lunch at a sea-side restaurant, where we had a delicious meal. The view of the beach with its pearl white sand, was so enticing so we went down onto it to let off some steam with a great game of beach football. Before setting off for our first game of the tour, we grabbed a quick ice cream in the beach in the sun.

We battled hard in our first game against a very athletic school, where we thought we had visited Hogwarts! It was a tough match, but we came out with the mentality to win our next game. Once finished, we went back to the hotel for the first time and then went into the town for the evening. There we had dinner and time to relax. A good night’s sleep was needed for all of us!

On our second day we went swimming at a local leisure centre, this was so much fun as we played loads of games and raced in the rapids! Our second match followed straight after lunch, and we were determined to start on top form from the first blow of the whistle. As a team we battled through every minute of the game, committing to every tackle, making plenty of opportunities, showing perseverance and resilience.

For our final night we went out to a fabulous Italian restaurant (Bella Italia) and after finishing dinner, we took a slow stroll back to the hotel for our final night’s sleep.

To conclude our trip, on the last morning we revisited the town centre for a final time to make sure we had all the gifts we wanted for our families.

This was a fantastic team building trip which we all thoroughly enjoyed, with two fabulous coaches who we couldn’t have had a better time with, we are all so pleased and honoured to be a part of this wonderful team and to have had this amazing opportunity."

Student Report: Joseph M 8E1