This term, the PE department ran two football trips to Manchester, the girls went in March, and the boys in May.

Both trips were a great success, with a jam-packed itinerary that really made the most of the time the students were away.

Between the two trips, students visited the National Football Museum, went to Etihad Stadium for a behind the scenes tour, visited Anfield Stadium, had a training session at Bolton Academy, played ten pin bowling as part of their evening entertainment and of course, watched plenty of football.

We had a great endorsement from Keith Wooding who ran the Etihad stadium tour for the boys' trip:

Just a quick note to say what a pleasure it was to meet a group of your students and staff yesterday on the Etihad stadium tour. Myself and 2 colleagues, Jay and Addison, were responsible for showing your group around stadium and we all agreed that the behaviour of your students was exemplary throughout ( despite there only being one Man City fan out of 47 students!!) As a former PE teacher myself, I'm fully aware of the importance of school trips and also, the demands that residential visits in particular, place upon the accompanying staff. It speaks volumes about your staff on the visit that your students were so well-behaved, respectful and engaged by the tour.

Sam M in Year 9 wrote a piece about the trip:

The coach trip there was fun with some interesting jokes from Mr Barkley! We arrived in Manchester and went to Pizza Express then  we walked to Old Trafford and learnt some history about Manchester United FC. We then got back on the coach to Etihad stadium to watch Man City vs Wolves which was good fun. Man City won 1-0 by a goal from De Bruyne and Mr Barkley enjoyed the chant on the way back.

Once we arrived at the hotel we went to our rooms and went to sleep as it was late.The next day we had to be up early for the Etihad stadium tour. This was great as we saw Scott Carson’s shirt. Later on, we went to watch Bolton vs Stevenage which was a draw 1-1. We then went bowling and Mr Haines got some flukey strikes!

We then went back to the hotel and after a bit of excitement we settled down as we had to be up early again to go to Anfield to watch the women’s Merseyside derby. This ended up 2-0 to Everton and somehow Liverpool didn’t score despite having 27 shots. Out of all 3 games my favourite was the City one as we had very good seats behind the goal and close to the pitch.

Overall it was a great trip and thank you to all the teachers that came.