Friday 2 March 2018

Belgium Trip Going Ahead

Good morning everyone,

based on the conditions of the roads and the weather this morning, we are planning to go ahead with the Belgium trip. We look forward to meeting the students at 7am at Nonsuch - please drive very carefully!

Many thanks for your patience and support for the trip this year.

Mr Coy

Thursday 1 March 2018

Belgium Trip - Weather Update 3

Based on the current weather forecasts, the Belgium Trip is still planned to go ahead tomorrow. However we will start at 7AM, not 5am as originally advertised, to allow the turning circle on the school site to be cleared and for daylight travel for parents. The pathway to David Lloyd will not be cleared by this time so we advise you to park off site to deliver your daughters. We ask that parents should check this blog again on Friday morning by 5.45am to check for further updates in case of severe weather and advice from Westways, our coach company, that the trip must be cancelled.


Due to the later start please can you provide a packed lunch for your daughter or the means to buy food at Dover (ie please bring some UK pounds) where we may have to wait for a ferry. Prices on the ferry are also in pounds. This means we may not get to Ypres until later in the afternoon but we still plan to visit the In Flanders Fields Museum and walk together to the Menin Gate before travelling to the hotel. Please could students ensure they have plenty of warm clothes to hand when they get on the bus and also make sure that they present their passport and EHIC card to a member of staff before they get on.


The weather in Ypres (look for "Ieper" if using BBC weather: https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/0/2795100)  looks much more promising on Saturday, and this will allow us to visit key sites such as Tyne Cot and the medical facilities at Essex Farm and Lijssenthoek so we can meet the aims of our trip.


We plan to return at approximately 10:30pm on Saturday as mentioned in the trip booklet but will communicate to you if this time changes.


Please could students also check their school emails where I have sent you a similar message and have asked you to reply to it acknowledging that you understand that we are now leaving at 7am.


Many thanks and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow (barring late weather changes - so keep checking the blog!)


Mr Coy

Belgium Trip Weather Update 2

You will have probably seen that Nonsuch is closed today (Thursday) due to the snow. Clearly the safety of students and staff is our greatest concern so we will check carefully to see if it is safe for the trip to go ahead tomorrow morning. Please assume for the moment that the trip is going ahead and we will leave an update with a confirmation of our final decision as soon as we can. We apologise for all the uncertainty caused by this due to difficulty predicting the severity of the weather in our area.