Field Day 2025
Last Friday, our traditional Field Day took place, students taking part in various activities including a trip to Colchester Zoo, Felixstowe beach, and our CCF cadets at various locations enjoying different activities.
Visit to Colchester Zoo and to Felixstowe Beach
Year 8 students made the trip to visit Colchester’s magnificent zoo! They had a fantastic time and enjoyed wandering around in groups looking at the elephants, lions, Amur leopard, monkeys, meerkats and much, much more! Lucky enough to have a talk from one of the zoo keepers about sustainability and conservation, students were able to hear about and consider the impact that we as individuals have on the world. Meanwhile, Year 7 visited Felixstowe beach, where they enjoyed playing on the sand, visited Martello Park and got themselves very wet running in and out of the sprinklers! Returning to School in the afternoon, they played a superb rounders tournament, finishing the day with a quiz. Year 7 and 8 were impeccably behaved, and they represented the School perfectly.
CCF RAF Field Day and Overnight
Our RAF cadets had a brilliant time on their Field Day and overnight stay at RAF Barnham training area, enjoying a full-scale overnight complete with an escape and evasion exercise aptly named ‘Operation Nightfall’. During the day they took part in a range of different and exciting activities, from finding the NCO in the ghillie suit, to fire and move paintballing! It was a great experience for everyone who took part, with lots of fun had by all, and many new skills acquired!
CCF Army Field Day and Overnight
The Army section also deployed to RAF Barnham for their field day exercise. On arrival cadets set up the bashas to sleep under and cooked their evening meal from their ration packs, ahead of Year 9 taking part in a night noises exercise while the Year 10 cadets carried out a patrol involving conducting a Close Target Recce (CTR), meeting an agent, contact drill & setting a snap ambush. Friday saw the Year 9 cadets go through a rota of stands; pairs fire and movement, navigation, a stalk and patrol observation skills. The Year 10s carried out section attacks. Despite the heavy rain through the night everyone stayed dry and had a great time. A special thanks for our Year 11 cadets, Ben and Huw along with Year 13’s Jack for taking part as well.
CCF NAVY Field Day and Overnight
Navy cadets travelled to Rendlesham forest on Thursday after School, where Lt Cmdr. Smith instructed them in some Bushcraft, as well as directing a night exercise. Cadets picked, stripped, bashed, dried and then wove nettles into cord, which most made into bracelets, before beginning to build two shelters and set up camp, cooking and eating ration pack food. The night exercise was held late into the evening, in a specified area of the forest, with a hide and seek enemy premise. The cadets tucked themselves into tents whilst Lt Cmdr. Smith Lt Saagi slept in the cadet prepared shelters. The drier of the two being the one prepared by the girls, which Lt Saagi slept in and thanked them for in the morning! Friday saw cadets enjoy breakfast together before returning to School for sessions of archery and canoeing on the River Deben, with lunch provided by the Schools amazing catering staff. The day finished with a session of Field Gun Run.
It’s fair to say that everyone enjoyed all of the activities; it was another great Field Day for our cadets. Thank you to our students for getting stuck in and making the most of the activities, and to all of our staff who went along with their respective sections.
