What an amazing week had by everybody on the ski slopes in Artesina, Italy!

91 students and 12 staff set off on the coach on Saturday morning and arrived and settled into our hotel by the Sunday lunchtime. Students had ski boot fitting that evening and enjoyed an evening bum boarding on the slopes.

The next day ski lessons began in earnest with lots of beginners out on the slopes. The progress made was amazing for the staff to watch and for the students to experience. That first evening we had a quiz night that was run by our ski rep.

Second day was another full day of lessons and then in true Italian style a Pizza Night in the hotel.

On the third day everyone was progressing really well so lots of groups headed up on chairlifts higher up the mountains. That evening was snow tubing. There were three runs of varying speeds to go down and then what started off as coming down the slope by yourself soon turned into four or five people coming down at once.

The fourth day was beautiful sunshine and a full on day of skiing. This was followed by night skiing where the slopes are lit up in the evenings. All groups went up to the top of the two slopes and all did amazingly by coming down and doing this loads of times throughout the evenings. The advanced groups made it to the snow parks to try out some of the jumps.

The last day skiing was amazing weather again and our “Fancy Dress Friday”. We saw some incredible outfits on the slopes which included a T-Rex, Teletubbies, Superheroes, Super Mario, a Lobster, Penguins, Winnie the Pooh characters, a Flamingo, a Traffic cone, Bananas and Minions. Students had made a real effort and with 103 of us on the trip it certainly attracted attention from the ski instructors and members of the public.

It was then back onto the coach for the return trip the UK.

The students all made such great progress in their skiing ability and it was incredible to watch this throughout the week. We hope that lifelong memories have been made and that all students had a fantastic time away. We all had #snowmuchfun!

Quotes from students:

“I think the main reason I enjoyed the ski trip so much was because of how much time we spent skiing. The more skiing, the better.”

“I really enjoyed learning more about how to ski and the overall experience was really fun.”

“It was the best experience and such an amazing trip.”

“I really enjoyed skiing so night skiing just made the whole day feel better.”

“It was amazing and a lot of fun, and a good way to spend time with your friends whilst making new ones in the process.”

“It was really fun and I learnt how to ski.”

“Really enjoyed it, learnt lots, in groups with friends, good food”