The St Mary's 2026 ski trip to Austria this Half Term was a great success.  The pupils were an absolute credit to the school with excellent manners, great listening and a huge amount of kindness to each other.  Many of the instructors and hotel staff commented on how it was a pleasure to work with our pupils from St Mary's and always look forward to our visit.

The ski conditions this year were challenging at times.  Heavy snow during the week resulted in us skiing in every possible mountain condition - skiing through snow, fog and sun with the piste conditions being icy in places but mostly like off-piste some days and perfect on others.  We have never experienced so much snow in the valley - it was lovely to watch the pupils play in it as we created our own St Mary's Winter Olympics one evening.

The pupils made fantastic progress with their skiing during the week.  The beginner skiers progressed quickly from the nursery slopes, up the mountain to skiing some of the most difficult slopes (black runs) and skiing from the top to the bottom of the mountain.  The intermediate and advanced skiers also made great progress, improving their parallel and carving turns as well as their slalom racing, showing similar skills to what we have been watching on TV in the Winter Olympics.

A special thank you to the staff - Mrs Budden, Mrs Walton, Mrs Turley, Mrs Peruffo, Miss Bailey, Mark (ski instructor) and Dani (rep).  Thank you so much for giving up your half term to support the ski trip and creating life long memories for our pupils 🙂

Mr Giampalma