Activities and Trips

Activities 

In addition to a full and varied curriculum, Elstree pupils are offered a wide range of extra-curricular activities. Pupils are able to make good use of the extensive grounds and facilities during their free time. Boarders can take advantage of a variety of clubs and hobbies after supper every day and, at Christmas time, a popular pastime is the dormitory decoration competition. The Elstree Award offers a structured programme for Years 6-8 (see Elstree Award).

Examples of the current clubs include: Balloon Modelling, Cookery, Fantasy Football, Judo, Tennis, Fencing, Sports Hall Games, Kayaking, Shooting, Chess, Art, DT and Jazz Band.

Trips

Day and residential trips are organised for every year group as part of our curriculum as well as for recreation and reward. These opportunities enhance learning and broaden the overall educational experience, together with building relationships and helping to develop independence.

We believe that there is great value of these out of school experiences which are always carefully planned, organised, supervised, evaluated and co-ordinated by a designated member of staff acting as the ‘Educational Trips Coordinator’.

Recent trips have included: Year 3 to Highclere Castle; Year 4 to Butser Farm Park; Junior Choir annual trip to a musical in London; Year 5 to Normandy and the Jewish Museum in London, Warwick Castle and the Wolf Trust; Middle School Choir trip to the Watermill Theatre; Year 6 to the Reading Mosque; Middle School boys to St Ives for a residential Art trip; Year 7 to Paris, the National Space Centre, the Olympic Site Park and the National Gallery; Senior Choir ice skating trip to Winchester Cathedral; the Da Vinci DT club to the Basingstoke Arts Festival; Year 8 to Dorset on their annual Geography Field trip, an Art trip to Glasgow and Edinburgh and at the end of the year, the Leavers’ trip to Dorset post-Common Entrance.

In addition, pupils often go out to represent Elstree at music and sports festivals as well as inter-schools competitions for general knowledge, debating, chess, maths challenges and all manner of other events.