1st YEAR FRENCH TRIP, June 2023

Background.

For over twenty years, we've organised a summer trip to France. This is offered to 1st Year students and tends to be arranged at the very beginning of the school year, in order to facilitate anyone looking to start planning their own family holidays, Irish College, summer camps, etc. Since we are very limited in terms of how many students we can travel with, it is important for us to identify the level of interest at this early stage, so that (in the event we need to hold a draw for places) we can promptly let interested students know if a space is available for them.

The trip is a two week sports trip, which is extremely active - lots of football, swimming, cycling, climbing, etc. in hot and demanding conditions. Students who are not very sporty, who do not enjoy rough and tumble activities, and who generally would not like to be consistently moving from one sporting activity to another for two weeks, would find the experience very unpleasant and would be much better suited to other summer options. Equally, each of the boys on this trip are expected to take significant responsibility acting independently - Being put in charge of arranging activities for the group, expected to interact with French people, completing important tasks unsupervised, etc. I mention these things not to turn people off, but to avoid the potential problem of a parent thinking that it would be a good idea to sign their son up for the trip, only for him to find himself seriously ill-suited to it, upset, frustrated and a long way from home - Which has happened before! It is important to emphasise that other trip options will hopefully open up as the year progresses, and that these may be better suited to many students.

In short, this particular trip suits a student interested in a heavy schedule of team sports, happy to mix with the wide range of people we are likely to interact with, able to take responsibility for a variety of jobs on his own, and open to living for two weeks in a group of classmates. (NB: Students who do not study French are welcome to join us - This is not a language trip).

Dates / Cost.

The proposed dates for the trip are Saturday June 3rd to Saturday June 17th. We fly directly to southern France and we stay for two weeks in a family campsite by the beach. Accommodation is in mobile homes with full bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms and showers. As mentioned, our days consist mainly of sports, with breaks for free time and meals. Talking to any student who has travelled with us before, might be a good way to get an independent review of what’s involved in the trip. Equally, you can see some of the action from our 2022 trip BY CLICKING HERE.

In 2022, the all-in cost of the trip was €1,450 and it is expected to be approximately the same this year. This price covers return flights, 14 nights accommodation, three meals per day, all activities, events and transport. We won't have a definite cost for this year until we check flights (which we'll do in the coming weeks).

The Process.

As was mentioned above, we are limited in terms of the number of students we can bring on this particular trip and it tends to be oversubscribed most years. In order to be as fair as possible, anyone interested in travelling should note that…

The initial step is to submit an 'expression of interest' form. This is online and available by CLICKING HERE. If you would be interested in your son travelling with us, the online form must be submitted by 1pm next Thursday September 8th. All forms received by the deadline will be considered equally - It is not a 'first-come first-served situation. If we are oversubscribed after the deadline has passed (which is likely), a draw will take place to select the successful applicants.

The day after the deadline (so on Friday 9th), everyone who submitted an interest form will be emailed. This will inform parents that their son was either successful in the draw (in which case they will then have a week to decide whether or not to accept the space), or to unfortunately say that they were unsuccessful in the draw (in which case they will have plenty of time to plan for other summer options).

Please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions,

David Wilson

dwilson@stmc.ie