Our recent Robin Hood Bay residential has allowed all pupils thrive, develop and become more confident through the carefully planned, multiple / layered up opportunities to apply their literacy, numeracy, language, social communication and emotional regulation skills in real life, community and social situations with deliberately fading support from familiar staff.

6th Former Lucy worked alongside speech and language therapist Sarah Throup to document the trip:

We arrived at the Old School House a little bit early, just after 2pm. We checked out our bedrooms and the social areas and settled in. We had a lovely walk down into Robin Hood’s Bay and enjoyed some time on the beach. The tide was coming in so we headed to the local shops to look for souvenirs, gifts…and snacks!

We walked up to the pub for 6pm for our evening meal, which was delicious. We stuck to our rule of no phones at the dinner table and had lots of lovely conversations and laughter. It was really nice. Everyone paid for their own meal with not much support from staff.

When we got back to the Old School House, we played some music and some people danced. Others played card games, chilled out and chatted before we all went to bed at about 9.45pm.

On Tuesday, some of us went for an early morning walk to the beach, we then came back and had a cooked breakfast which was lovely.

Once we finished breakfast we set off to Whitby which was so nice.

We did some shopping in Whitby. We shopped independently with hardly any support from staff, using our phones to calculate how much of our budget we were spending, counting out the exact change and making healthy choices about what to buy – as well as some treats, of course.

We moved onto Runswick Bay for our packed lunch and had a walk on the beach. The scenery was stunning and the weather was gorgeous. We found some small, pretty stones. Some people played football, including Andy! We took lots of photos and used our learning from photography lessons.

We then moved onto Scarborough and we walked on Scarborough beach which was nice. There was some beautiful sand art. We went into the arcades and had fun on the games and penny pusher machines. Most of us didn’t win anything. This was disappointing and difficult to manage, but we all did really well to recognise that the activity was fun and to learn that we don’t always win. We walked back along the beach which was lovely. We looked at the cliff that one of our parents had worked on to make it safe.

We went back to the Old School House, had some chill time, then we went for tea at the pub. We all spoke to the staff to pay for our food independently and made sure we had enough money and received the right change.

We went to Whitby Abbey and it was so good to see it in the dark. The views over Whitby all lit up were beautiful. Some of us did some stargazing because the sky was incredible.

Once we got back to the Old School House, we all did different things. Some of us played UNO, some of us had a dance and there was a heated game of pontoon. Some of us read the Wonky Donkey book and then showed Andy and Sarah and we all ended up in fits of laughter until 10pm!

On Wednesday, a few people went for an early morning beach walk. The sunshine over the sea was really pretty. We skimmed some stones and took lots of lovely photos. We all felt so calm and relaxed.

We had breakfast which consisted of cereals, sausage or bacon cob, pastries and hash browns. Once we had breakfast, we had a group photograph taken and then we loaded the minibus and set off back to school. We stopped halfway at California Lodge garden centre to eat our packed lunch, which was good. We had some interesting conversations on the journey, and got lots of practice respecting and celebrating our different opinions – not to mention changing song lyrics to make them funny and singing along!

We made lots of lovely memories and stronger friendships with each other. When we got back, everyone rated the trip 10/10 and said that they would like to go again!