Last week truly was an incredible week, with our secondary students and a number of staff enjoying the Secondary Challenge Week trips. The Year 7 students had a wonderful time at the World Heritage listed Khao Yai National Park. Both students and staff have been raving about the trip and about some of the highlights, including setting up their own tents, camp cooking by torchlight and a great night safari during which the group got up close to a herd of elephants. Our Year 8 students had a challenging time on the ‘reefs to rainforest’ experience down near Chanthaburi. Two of the real highlights on the trip were the turtle programme that they visited and the mangrove kayaking. The Year 9 and 10 students had possibly the most challenging of all the trips, with the IA students undertaking a huge 2 day walk through the jungle. Whilst a number of very tired students initially said ‘never again’, this is an experience that many of them will never forget. The spiders alone were something that most students have been discussing since their return. The final one of our trips was for the Year 11 to 13 students, who travelled to Chiang Rai before splitting into 2 smaller groups and heading to a couple of the local villages, where they undertook community volunteer work. Both the group working at a local school, and the group working on the water supply to a local village, were commended for their work ethic, with one person commenting about how Bromsgrove students had exceeded all expectations. Our Challenge Week trips were a huge success, and I would like to extend my thanks to all of the students for their fine efforts and attitude, to all the very tired staff for their enthusiasm and to the trip leaders for their sterling planning and guidance in the lead up to the trips.