At 4pm on 16 December 42 pupils from Years 7 to 9 and 6 staff left St John’s for the Aosta Valley in the Italian Alps.

After a long coach journey, we finally arrived at our Hotel, The Casale, just after midday the following day. Although it had been the mildest start to the winter in living memory, we were very fortunate that 80cm of snow had fallen in our resort of Pila the day before our arrival, which meant we were met with superb snow conditions from the off.