The weather gods certainly have a sense of humour. The previous week had seen rain suggestive of a new flood; the Bronze group had wall-to-wall sunshine with frozen water-butts overnight.

A group of our Sixth Form students have just launched their own website in preparation for their 300km charity cycle ride from Southsea to Reims, the birthplace of our founder: Saint John Baptist De La Salle.

A party of 39 pupils and four staff spent the first week of the Easter break visiting the Chateau du Broutel in Rue, France. The week was spent visiting WWI historic sites as well as enjoying the French way of life with visits to a chocolate factory, a goat farm, a bakery and a number of hours exploring a French market.

In the last week of the Easter holidays, 24 pupils from Years 10 and 11 and five staff went skiing in the Aosta valley in the Italian Alps.

A group of 14 students and four staff are currently busy preparing for a trip to Sri Lanka, where they will spend two-weeks volunteering in July.

Watch our students skiing in Pila, Italy...

We all arrived on Saturday 15th December at school with massive bags. We were very excited and also slightly nervous about the long journey ahead. We all loaded on to the coach, waved goodbye and tried to get comfortable...

Thirty Year 11, 12 and 13 students are preparing for their World Challenge trip to Malaysia. They leave on Saturday 7 July, and for two weeks will be trekking through rainforests and taking part in voluntary work. Read about how they are getting on here.

In June, Year 8 pupils involved themselves in a study of the River Darkwater in the New Forest. We were very lucky in that on both days we escaped the rain in what had been a very wet early summer – the levels of water in the River were higher than it had been for some time.

On Monday 4 June a party of 24 pupils and four staff left the Junior School for a five-day break at Osmington Bay in Dorset. The journey was uneventful and, after unloading the minibuses, the party were shown their accommodation. This was followed by tea before the children were shown ‘Little Wembley’, an area of soft sand where they were able to take part in games of football and volleyball.

Sixteen Year 10 pupils and two staff flew from a chilly Gatwick airport in May to the distinctly warmer climes of the capital city of Catalonia in northern Spain. This was a brand new exchange with the Colegio La Salle Bonanova in Barcelona. Our pupils were met at the airport in the late afternoon by exchange partners who they already knew from the Spanish visit to England in March, and their families. They were then spirited away to their homes all around this fabulous city.

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.