At the beginning of October some Year 5s went to Derwent Hill Monday to Wednesday and others Wednesday to Friday. Derwent Hill is in the Lake District, near Keswick, and it is an activity centre.

Because Derwent Hill is in Cumbria, it took a long coach ride to get there but eventually, we arrived at our destination. Whilst on the coach, we saw the Angel of the North (which people quite liked because they were shouting).

On Thursday 5th October, a group of boys went on a trip to VUE Gateshead and Nando’s. There were only 6 boys who organised the trip, and 5 boys who won the Geometry Dash competition—this was their prize. We got the Metro to Gateshead and then walked to Nando’s from there. We had lots of fun, trying all the sauces and refiling our drinks. Then our food came; it was delicious. We ate it fast (we are Year 7 and 8 boys after all!) and soon left with full stomachs.

On Saturday 30th October at 9:30, me, 19 other children, Mr Stout and Mrs Lamberth started a 7 hour journey to the Isle of Arran in Scotland. Three quarters of the way there, we stopped at Gretna Green for an hour to spend some of our money and stretch our legs. Finally, we reached the ferry after a 6-7 hour drive. The ferry took another hour to get to the island but it was a lot more fun than sitting in a van! We wandered round the ship and took some pictures. We reached the island and drove from Brodick to Loch Ranza. When we reached loch Ranza we unloaded all of our luggage and saw our rooms for the first time. We had dinner at 6:00 and when it got dark we went for a night walk we saw a seal and all of the tall mountains surrounding us. When we got back, we could rest in the common room for a while but we had to be in bed at 10:00 and lights out at 10:15. For the next five days we had breakfast at 8:00 (it was very nice) we had packed lunches and dinner at 6:00. We did many activities including; gorge walking, abseiling, seashore and river studies, climbing Goat Fell and going for walks. My favourite activity was gorge walking because it was very exciting but very cold. The weather was cold and often wet but we had plenty of warm jumpers and waterproofs so it didn’t stop us! On the day we were leaving, we had breakfast at 7:00 and left at 7:30. We arrived back in Gosforth tired but having had a great opportunity to enjoy one of Scotland’s most beautiful islands.

Get your running shorts and trainers on, and get your legs nice and warmed up, because we’re going for a cross-country run, and, yes, as usual, across the whole of England!

Just kidding.

Is cross-country running the most tiring thing that I have ever done? Probably.

But did I actually cross the country? Unfortunately, no. (technically, “hooray!” because I would have died of exhaustion if I had run the KS3 2110m course instead of the KS2 1550m one).

Instead, the racing “track” was set in a medium-sized field with a small hill. Yes, we had to run uphill and downhill as well, just to make the running distance seem twice as long as it actually is, and to tire you out even more.

Despite this, GEMS’s strong squad of over 30 runners, still tried their best, competing against other KS2 and KS3 athletes from the district, and Ethan even managed to come 7^th, and Teodora also came 10^th and both are through to the County Championships.

After the races, most of us probably had sore legs, and perhaps have felt that we could have done better. But after a while, you look back and think, “Whoa, I never knew I could manage to run all of that course!”, and you feel like you’ve actually achieved something.

By Jessica Year 6

Fourteen pupils from GEMs had the opportunity of visiting GE Oil and Gas. However, these pupils were all females, this is because engineering in general is thought to be a man’s job, but as I and these other girls learnt, it really isn’t! The majority of engineering companies are looking to employ young, ambitious students and more females; especially GE Oil and Gas.

On Thursday 5th October, we were greeted into the hall with a lovely song about harvest.

We celebrated that day by exploring the meaning of ‘harvest.’ Harvest obviously refers to the harvesting of crops in autumn but we were encouraged to  think more broadly about the EARTH that produces our food, the need to SHARE what we have with the people who have less and  to think about and feel compassion from our HEART for the people in other countries and at home who know what it is to STARVE.