First Time.

I think that I have finally recovered enough to relive the first (but I am sure not only...I would only be so lucky) experience of this particular event as a teacher. Naturally, I'm speaking about chaperoning a field trip.

And what a trip it was. Let me give you the details.

100 Year 7 students...100 eleven year old boys and girls being taken into the woods of Oxfordshire to work on team building skills. And I was lucky enough to be going along. A definite bonus was being able to wear casual clothes, even if I did look younger than some of the students and get confused for an extra child a couple of times.

Within about 5 minutes of pulling out of the school parking lot, the kids were into their pop, candy and were about 27 different shades of hyper. The bus ride was about 90 minutes and it was about an hour into the trip when the inevitable happened.

"Miss......I don't feel so good." And up comes the first batch of sweets and fizzy drinks.

It was like a chain reaction and I was left walking through a mine-field of projectile vomiting children. The heat on the bus was turned up on high, there were no windows to open and the smell was just...indescribable. Once the first kid let loose, the smell and sound set off another, and then another...and then another. Followed by 2 more, just for good measure. In total, 6 kids couldn't keep their snacks to themselves and we only had 3 sick bags. I'll spare you the details. Actually, no, I won't. 3 kids were lucky enough to get their own sick bag, one needed the spare change of clothes that were brought along and the last one got to experience a type of recycling that nobody ever wants to participate in. I likened the event to a scene I watched in a Stephen King film, only it was much more...chunky.

Eventually, and with no more chunks a-flying, we arrive at Cornbury Park and spend the day watching the kids do team-building exercises, like learning to build a fire, collecting firewood, cooking over an open flame and playing some games. The kids cooked whole trout for lunch and I decided to creep a couple of them out by eating both eyes from the fish. Wasn't so bad, tastes a bit like a salty, crunchy pea. Much more appetizing than what the kids had to offer for snacks on the ride there, I'll just say.

Rounded up the kids, gave them explicitly clear instructions that they were not to eat or drink a single thing on the ride back, and loaded them back into the buses. Overall, an eventful field trip. I definitely needed the holiday that was coming up that weekend. Next time...my Tenerife trip!