The Castle School Newbury to Paris Bike Ride

“Me, ride a bike to Paris? You must be joking!”, said a slightly concerned Headteacher back in September 2012. Unsurprisingly, it all started around a pub table. I was waxing lyrical about the school that I am Headteacher at – The Castle in Newbury (www.thecastleschoolnewbury.org.uk/). I was explaining to my friends what a wonderful place The Castle School is and how amazing it is to work there. I then got onto explaining some of the challenges and barriers that our young people face. They were shocked at the difficulties many of our students had to contend with and this is where it started. “Maybe we can do something to raise awareness”; “what about something to make a bit of money to support the school”. The evening went on and eventually the Eureka moment hit us – How about a bike ride? We had all dabbled in riding bikes over the years to a greater or (in my case) a lesser extent.  Discussion deepened and plans began to unfold. With the help of a few ales it was unanimously decided that we would cycle to Paris – I say unanimously, but the first line of this article was how I really felt. Bear in mind that we are not a trained, fit cycling group; just some friends who decided we needed to do something to help. However, after I had been convinced it was all systems go – this year Paris, next year the World!

The Journey

So, on Thursday 11 April 2013 myself as Headteacher and three intrepid accomplices will embark on our pedal-powered passage to the City of Light. This will be no normal bike ride. For a start we will not be accompanied by a support vehicle: we will carry everything we need and will deal with any disaster that unfolds en route. The ride will take us from The Castle School at Newbury to Portsmouth. Then across the Channel to Le Havre from where we will ride for two days to reach our destination (a total mileage of around 200 miles!), finally we will alight our steeds, exhausted, but hopefully happy, at the Eiffel Tower. I plan to blog about the journey on the school website so that you will have all the ups and downs of the challenge.

What do we hope to achieve?

At The Castle School, we are passionate about giving our young people skills so that they can contribute successfully to their local community. As such, we want to develop an area of woodland on the school grounds into a Forest Activity Area where our pupils, whatever their abilities or disabilities can experience a natural landscape and learn how to enjoy the outdoors and develop skills in friendship and teamwork. This venture does not come cheap, as we will need to install natural paths that can be used by both walkers and people in wheelchairs; fencing to make the site secure and safe; new outdoor natural buildings to enable everyone to work outside whatever the weather and training to empower our staff to get out into the woods and develop the curriculum so that whatever is the focus for learning – Maths, English, Geography, Music – can be delivered outside in the natural environment. We would hope that this woodland would be something that other schools and organisation would use in the future as well. This is something that our school and pupils would benefit immeasurably from.

 

The cycle ride may be a challenge for us, but it does not compare to the challenges that many of our young people have to deal with every single day. Please give what you can and make this dream a reality for the young people at the Castle School and the local community.

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So please dig deep and donate now.

Thanks,

Jon Hewitt (Headteacher - The Castle School)