What makes a great school residential? What motivated you to book a trip with Rockley? These are the types of questions we ask our teachers and leaders to ensure that we are constantly improving and developing our product and making it the best we can! They normally prompt a ‘top 5’ selection with the usual safety, activities, location, experience etc featuring pretty high.
For the parents amongst you who have sent their children off on a school residential trip, this criteria however, is often quite different for the young people involved! When asked the question – ‘What was the best/worst bit’ of their time away, food will always feature very highly, if not at the top of their response. The truth of the matter is, the food provided on a residential trip can make or break a child’s experience of their time away from home.
Fuelling the body and the mind
A good amount of plentiful food which caters for all tastes and dietary requirements is what we strive to achieve – this is an adventurous trip involving outdoor activities and endless fresh air, which will undoubtedly build up an appetite. Fuelling the body and the mind is a great way to enhance the mood and keep your young people motivated and physically able to enjoy all the activities on offer.
Of course getting the balance between what realistically appeals to young people and providing healthy meals is a challenging feat but it looks like we have managed to rise to said challenge. Every year is a learning curve and it appears we have been learning a lot over the years! This year in particular, teachers have been compelled to comment about the food offering and we have been so pleased to hear all the positive feedback.
Catering for all needs
It is so important that all children are catered for. In a time where there are so many anomalies to people’s diets, we never want anyone to feel that this is in any way a big issue or even worse, acts as a deterrent to them coming on a trip with us in the first place. We have a great catering team who prepare all meals on-site and absolutely nothing is too much trouble! Of course, catering for our teachers is also top of our priority which is why our ‘Cheese and Wine Night’ (alcohol-free offering is also available) evening is something we all look forward to!
To find out more about our residential activity trips, please click below.