This term has seen the continuation of Senior 5’s varied schedule of sports activities which has included indoor bowling, visits to the climbing wall at Beaumont Leys and a regular lunchtime fencing sessions with coach Mr Chris Beadling preparing the ten boys and one girl to rake their Grade 1 award. 

Two trips were made to Church Broughton Golf Club courtesy of Mr Simon Wordsworth’s Inspire Group for one group of boys and one group of girls to receive expert tuition on chipping, driving and golf course etiquette, followed by an exciting team competition over three holes on their top quality course. 

 The boys concluded their series of activities with a motorsport element, a visit to Grand Prix Karting at Amington, Tamworth which saw some exciting competitive racing.

For the past two terms, youngsters at Swallows Hill have been practising their darts skills – and their subtraction! It was decided that a darts competition would be held.

Every morning, teachers had to beware of flying darts as they arrived in school! The competition proved very exciting and with some very close results.

Often the final dart needed to finish off an opponent proved very elusive. Eventually Sam Everson-Crane won the Form 3 contest and Tom Hall the Form 4.    

For their final expedition, the hastily rearranged DofE Silver groups ventured into the ‘empty quarter’ – the quiet and relatively little-visited area bounded by Monmouth, Abergavenny and Hay-on-Wye in the Welsh Marches.
 Poor weather and visibility, coupled with reduced day length and dodgy navigation in one case, made days 1 and 2 exhausting, with some groups not reaching camp until well after dark.
 Day 3 saw much finer weather.  The route ran north along the Golden Valley, leading to the climb up to Arthur’s Stone (a Neolithic burial chamber, pictured).  This ascent impressed many people.