At the early time of 5:00am, on the 20^th of January, 30 year 8 students met at Newcastle airport. From there we began our journey on the 2 hour flight to Grenoble. When we landed there was less snow than in Newcastle and the sky was grey. We then got on a coach that took us on an hour and a half drive up a windy mountain road. Luckily, nobody was sick. Everything was covered in snow; the view was completely different from the one at the airport. Mountains surrounded us and there were piles of deep snow everywhere. When we arrived we unpacked and got our ski boots fitted.

The next day was our first ski session. Our instructor was called Nico, but there were 6 other instructors. We were in the beginner group, so on the first day we just went up nursery slopes, we still all fell over. Skiing was so much fun and we all saw how much we had improved in just one day.

Each night we had free time when we got our money and went into the village. There was a Spar so we bought a lot of sweets and drinks (Prince biscuits were our favourite). A crêperie, patisserie, sweet shop, pizza place and chip shop were also in the village. We loved the chips there. When we got back we had tea and had to prepare for a room inspection. Marks were given for tidiness and ambience. Ambience means atmosphere, each room had to create an ambience that would impress the teachers. Some of them included croissant towels, words made with sweets, songs and more. At the end of the week the room with the most points won.

Each night we did a different activity, on the first night we did bum boarding.  Bum boarding is like sledging but with a smaller board. On Monday we did a quiz (our team won and we got free milkshakes). Next was ‘Invertigo’, which was a massive soft play. On Wednesday we had a movie night, the film was ‘The Hunger Games’ and we ate popcorn. A few people were so tired they fell asleep during the film. Then we had a games night. We played board games, pool, table football and Just Dance. Kirsty said, “My favourite bit about skiing was going down the slopes really fast and watching the boys dancing. I also really enjoyed bum boarding.”

We all skied on a variety of slopes. Our group mainly skied on greens (easy slopes) but on the last day we skied on some blues (medium slopes). The advanced group skied on the longest black slope in Europe. Aaron said, “I loved skiing down red slopes and my instructor was really helpful.”

We also went on a terrifying ski lift called “the scare chair”. The scare chair was a steep ski lift that dropped over a mountain. By the end of the week we had all improved a lot. We had a presentation with our instructor and got badges depending on what we could do.

Sadly, on Saturday we headed back to the airport and on the flight to Newcastle. When we landed in Newcastle we were reunited with our families and headed home. Overall it was an amazing week and we would love to do it again

By Sophie , Delphine and Isabelle