You've heard of Ray Mears? Well, in June 2008 all of the Fifth Forms had a bushcraft course, involving camping overnight, cooking, and building a shelter. The leader had actually worked with Ray Mears, so he most definitely knew what he was doing. Below are some of the boys' reports.

Bushcraft is when you deliberately put yourself in a situation in the wild. Survival is when you are not under control of what has happened and are trying to prolong death until you are rescued. We learnt how to make fire with birch bark and small twigs, enlarging a little bit at a time, with the largest, the size of your thumb. Birch bark has lots of oils in it so it is waterproof and very reliable.

We lit the fire and cooked some mackerel and corn on the cob on it. It was all very tasty. We then put the fire out and covered it all up and threw the ash away. We then went to make a shelter. We had to find a “Y” stick, which was a stick as tall as the tallest person’s chest and with a “Y” at the end, and two ridge poles, which were twice as tall as the tallest person to make the main frame of the shelter. We then put the Ridge poles in the “Y” of the “Y” stick.

F Beard

We learnt how make a fire and cook all types of food, and we even made bread from scratch. We also made an amazing shelter out of twigs and leaves, and then we played a really fun stalking game, it was really hard. The smoke from the fire was stinging our eyes.

We went to a great estate and set up camp. We learned that birch tree bark is high in oil so that it burns well. On the fire we cooked mackerel and corn on the cob, and everyone enjoyed the outing.

It was a challenging day and when we got back we camped on Spens Field, and had a fry up down there. Everyone enjoyed the cooking over the fire and making the food so now we can probably be able to survive. 

E Chamberlain

The fifth form had a bushcraft day on the 24th of June. The whole year was split into two groups, half the year to camp on Monday, and the others to camp on Tuesday. Early on in the year Alex McBarnett gave us a talk on bushcraft. Basically it is when you put yourself in the situation of survival and it is the idea of surviving with just one piece of equipment; a knife.

 After the camping the first and second groups met up, had breakfast, and proceeded to drive to a rented estate in Newbery were Alex and a few helpers gave us a day on bushcraft skills. We started on one of the must important skills of fire-lighting and making bread. Alex went on to talk about techniques of firelighting.
We were split into the three classes and collected birch tree bark, sticks and logs to get our fire going. Once the fire was going we put on a grill between two logs and placed a grill on top of them where we put mackerel, garlic bread and sweetcorn to be cooked. The lunch was delicious, and the bread which Alex made was good too.

After lunch we had to clean up the fire. We got our hands dirty cleaning the fire so it looked as if nobody had been there. Then we were given the task of building a shelter. The two main components of the shelter we were making was a stick in the shape of a “y” and two long poles called ridge poles. We fixed these to the ground and covered them with sticks. When the shelter was finished we had a photo taken and went to the woods to play a stalking game were one boy is sitting in the middle of a forest area with lots of dead leaves on the ground and by him is a set of car keys. The other boys stalk in to try to collect them without being heard. If the boy in the middle hears a boy and points to him that boy is out. After two games we went back to the coach and then back to school.

E Griffin

On the 24th of June, we made our way to an estate about one and a half hours away from the school to learn all about bushcraft. Bushcraft is all about trying to survive in any situation, but in our case we learnt how to survive in the forest. All of us had the chance to make a fire; we gathered up sticks from birch trees to help the fire stay alight. The reason we used this type of sticks was because there is lots of oil in them.

When it came to lunchtime we were lucky enough to have fish. We put a grill over the fire and placed the fish over it. The fish was delicious, although hard to eat due to all the bones. After the fish we had corn on the cob which was also cooked over the fire. After our main course we decided to roast marshmallows over the fire. These were delicious.

After lunch we went deeper into the woods to learn how to build a shelter. After designing the shelter we were split up into two groups to gather sticks. After creating the frame of the shelter we were sent around the woods to gather up many leaves to put over the frame. The completed shelter looked like this:

S Kaplan

We spent the night out on Spens Field and woke early to shower and get ready for a busy, tiring day. We took a coach to Newbury where we met our instructors. The first activity we did was fire-lighting. We had to collect birch tree bark and thin twigs. We all had a go at sparking the fire with a fire lighter. I had garlic bread and corn on the cob whilst the non-vegetarians had mackerel roasted over the fire.

After lunch we put out the fire. We did this by letting the fire die out and pouring water from a jerry can over it. We then had to scoop out the sludge from the pit and disperse it.

Next we were told to create a shelter using three big sticks, lots of small sticks and leaves. The shelter was hard work and the finished product was brilliant! It was dark, cool and very spacious.

S Thakrar