Despite the inclement weather, our sixth visit to the Manche region of Normandy with our Year 7s proved to be a busy but enjoyable experience for all involved with our pupils taking on the roles of explorers, historians, linguists and chefs de cuisine.
With a slight change to our previous visit, we spent the first morning at the bustling market at Villedieu les Poeles, famous for its bell foundry and copperware. The pupils enjoyed exploring and putting their French phrases to good use and snapping up some souvenir bargains as well as the ubiquitous crepes and saucisses frites! In the afternoon, we made our first visit to the Chateau Baudoniere for bread making à la francaise with hearty singing and artistic shaping of the dough to make bread for supper.
Steady rain throughout our history day to the northern coast failed to dampen the pupils’ enthusiasm for medieval history at Bayeux Tapestry followed by a sober visit to Arromanches with the 360 degree cinema showing the dramatic account of the 100 day Battle for Normandy beginning with D Day. Returning to Bayeux, we spent a short time at the Commonwealth War cemetery wandering amongst the graves of the fallen from many different nationalities before returning to our hotel in Agon Coutainville for the highly anticipated Soirée française, where pupils got to finally taste escargots!
Our last full day was spent at the Chateau Baudonniere taking part in four different activities including the relatively unknown ‘aeroballe’, a kind of handball on trampolines! All instructions and tuition were done entirely in French so great for our pupils’ listening skills.
After our final evening, talent show and disco we made a slight diversion on our way back to Caen to la chevre-rit (the goat farm) for a wonderfully informative session on the goats cheese production as well as the chance to cuddle some cute little goats and try their milk fresh from the udder!
The pupils were a pleasure to take away and I hope this will encourage them to make a return visit one day to this fascinating region of France.
Roll on the next FSM adventure in 2020!
Check out the photos in our image gallery here!
Written by: Mr Boyington