Year 8's Ski Trip to Pila, Italy

Once again our Yr 8 students returned to Pila, Italy and had an amazing experience skiing during the Easter break.

Over the Easter break 24 of our Year 8 students travelled to the Aosta Valley to learn to ski whilst spending the week in the Italian resort of Pila.

Our Journey was relatively uneventful, just 23 hrs on a coach! The level of excitement started high as we left Bingley on Easter Saturday, dipped as we finally got on the ferry at Dover at 10pm that evening, then rallied as we began the amazing climb up the French side of Mont Blanc. When we emerged on the Italian side it soared. We had entered an alpine wonderland - actually the very picturesque village of Courmayer, covered in a thick layer of snow. Exactly what we wanted!! Snow conditions were fantastic - we couldn’t believe our luck, it was after all late March.

All our students showed an excellent attitude to skiing and progressed well through the week - the tagline for the week was ‘push your boundaries (PTB), but stay safe!’

Après ski activities included bowling, a disco, pizza night, and a trip to Aosta for shopping and amazing Gelato. The activity level just never stopped. We all dropped into our beds every evening in Hotel Valdotain.

As ever the students were a credit to BGS and should be highly commended. They received complements on their behaviour from the very first service station stop where 2 of our Yr 8 boys where given praise on their politeness from an elderly couple, during the first morning at ski fit where one of the instructors said he’d never seen pupils be so polite & helpful towards each other and so fast at putting their ski boots on (a tricky task for the un-initiated) to our coach drivers who said they’d never had such a pleasant, polite & friendly set of pupils on a school trip.

To keep parents up to date with the goings on in Pila, teaching staff on the trip - mainly Miss Wales - made sure to post regular photos and updates on twitter.

A great trip Yr 8, you were awesome! We all had fun and laughed lots. Well done for looking after/out for each other- another no injuries trip - phew! The ‘Frozen’ top trump cards never made it out of Dr.Crowder’s ruck-sac.

A big thank you from the staff - Dr.Crowder, Miss. Wales, Miss. Rennie, Mr. Langan & Miss. Seeley. We thoroughly enjoyed our time with you.

#PilaintheSky, #Pilarules! 

Here, Yr 8 student and new skier Daniel, gives his review of the trip:

“The Yr 8 Ski trip was amazing, I enjoyed it so much. At the start I was very excited and a bit nervous but when we got there it was really fun. On the first day I did not know how to ski but I picked it up straight away and became quite good at it until I crashed into a snow drift.

This is the story of the snow drift. Picture this…..

The rest of my group were waiting for me round the corner, I came bombing round to hear them shouting “slow down, slow down!” but I couldn't. I was out of control and went straight into the snow drift! I got stuck in it and it took about 5 minutes to get me out but it was great fun and everybody else found it hilarious!

The ski trip has made me more confident and helped me learn new things. I enjoyed it so much that I would go again for definite and thanks to my mum and dad for this once in a life time opportunity.

The teachers that came with us really looked after us and made it really enjoyable – Dr Crowder and Miss Wales were well wicked skiers. I wish we could have stayed for at one more week at least!”