Wednesday morning and snow has been pretty non-stop.  Despite conditions, all have been making the most of the slopes.  The beginners have really taken to the slopes like a duck to water and their excellent instructor has been covering the mountain with them, getting them up chairs and gondolas and their confidence is really growing.  The Ewoks (aka) intermediates, have been raking up their ski mileage as Mario takes them non-stop across the resort, whilst Franco and the advanced group often fly past us mere mortals taking a more leisurely descent down.

Off the piste, our auction night on Monday saw four of the five precious eggs safely descend from the Year 6 room's balcony - Levi behind the front desk was most concerned there would be egg splattering strewn across the hotel car park, whilst last night all the children enjoyed our very impromptu quiz won by team Shamazing.

Fingers crossed for some clearer weather, but in the meantime, attached is some video from the last few days.

FPS Ski Trip Team

Day 2 - Monday and the weather has improved immeasurably, after a very snowy night.  Children enjoyed bingo and killer last night, the tension for a full house was intense - went down to the wire and Taylor was very excited to get the last number.

All use to the morning drill now and we were waiting for the instructors on the slopes by 8.45 for a 9am start.  The mountains are now clearly visible and the beginners took their first ride in the chair lift and successfully navigated the morning's skiing.  For the inters and top group they were first on the mountain and enjoyed making tracks in the new snow as piste bashers had let it lie over-night.

Staff have been mixing it up and Mr B struggled to keep up with the top group this morning, so will cut a more sedate stance with the inters this afternoon.  Working on evening activities for tonight, think the children have exhausted the limited shops in town - at the end of the day - all roads led to the SPAR - think they may be coming back with most of their (your) money.

Well, best be off - hit the hill at 1pm - all just enjoyed chicken schnitzel and chips for lunch - which went down a treat - have plenty of ballast for the afternoon's skiing.

More to follow tomorrow.

The FPS Ski Trip Team

Welcome to Paso del Tonale

Well, after the best part of 24 hours by coach and ferry we finally hit the village around 2.30 local time this afternoon. The children have been fantastic, fairly quiet during the night and enjoying being able to stretch their legs after being cooped up on the bus. Hotel is perfect, little bit out of the village but we have our own floor and all seem happy with the rooming arrangements. Hot water and plenty of room. Ski fit is all done and enjoying some down time before some (hopefully) good hearty Italian nosh and then an early night for all before getting out on the slopes for first morning of ski school at 9am. We will all be on the slopes and look out for tweets as we all take out latest ski adventure. Bad luck to the Felsted rugby teams, we have been following the matches, but what an achievement to play in a twickenham final! Well, over and out for now. The FPS ski team.

It's official - we're in the Mediterranean!

The skiing heat wave continues unabated. Thermals have been ditched and the black market trade in factor 50 sun cream is thriving. The standard of skiing has been excellent again and I have really enjoyed spending time with the beginners' group today watching them get better and better. They worked hard this morning, skiing over 8.5km followed by a further 7km this afternoon! I have no idea where they get their energy from - or maybe that's testament to both the quality and quantity of food provided by the hotel. Mr Barker show-cased his first trailer for the movie he is producing of the trip. Although it is still not up to his own ridiculously high standards, the rest of us teachers were very impressed and I know you will be as well. Hopefully we will be able to give you a 'sneak peek' on this blog before we return to England. The teachers have all been asked to choose their favourite track to be included in the soundtrack, so we spent a considerable amount of time reminiscing and comparing playlists; Mr Barker & Mr Robertson were in a different league compared to the rest of us! This evening's entertainment was the 'Mystery Auction'. 6 teams were formed and given a virtual £20,000 by our in-house banker Mr Barker or BOB (Bank of Barker) to bid for items ranging from a piece of string, sticky tape and piece of cardboard to a plastic bottle and a napkin. Bidding was fast & furious with several of the younger boys getting particularly excited. At the end of the auction, each group was given their task - to create a safe package for an egg using only the materials they had won in the auction. I take my at off to the ingenuity of some of the groups, unfortunately none were successful at actually keeping the egg intact! The winning group was therefore decided by who had spent the least amount of money. With the hot weather set to continue, I'm looking forward to getting back to Felsted with my 'Umpire's Tan' already in place for the cricket season!

Day 1 on the slopes

Smiling faces, tired bodies! Four hours of ski lessons has certainly taken its toll but everybody has come back to the hotel really pleased with their performance. There has been talk of jumps, parallels, blue slopes, red slopes and snowballs. However the biggest topic of conversation has been who has had the best 'stack' and eaten the most snow; leading contenders at the moment seem to be Beau & Jackson.

Lunchtime saw us all back in the hotel not only for our lunch, but also to cool down after skiing and remove a layer of insulation before heading back out. Although the afternoon started hot, I'm pleased to say that as we got back to the hotel, we had the first flakes of snow; hopefully this is the start of a big fall that will give us some nice fresh powder tomorrow morning.

With the day's skiing over, year 7 & 8 seem to be leading a major economic revival of Risoul - every single one of them has signed out to hit the shops having raided the 'bank of Barker' previously! The year 6 boys' gang was hot on their heels, although I'm not sure exactly what they were aiming to buy with their €5 each.

Hotel Le Morgan

We're here safe and sound and our worries about the possible lack of snow have been assuaged by the hotel staff who have assured is that the snow on the slopes is good all day at the moment. Having driven through 15 degree heat for most of the day, we were preparing ourselves for a beach holiday instead! The unseasonal weather meant that at least the lunch break was enjoyable, as those of you who are following us on Twitter will know. We were able to enjoy our sandwiches, crisps & Capri Sun in glorious sunshine. The minor glitch with the coach's air conditioning meant that we had to endure a couple of hours of discomfort, however Mrs Robertson's ability to be prepared for anything meant we had sufficient water supplies to see us through. The kids were brilliant throughout the journey and continued to be great ambassadors for the school when we arrived in Risoul. The year 7 & 8 boys deserve a special mention as they were put to work moving bags, drinks & general supplies from the coach into the hotel, although they still didn't mind to find the missing jam sandwiches!

The hotel itself is great - the rooms are all well sized, although some of the boys need to have some lessons in how to unpack and organise their rooms properly! Fortunately Mrs Bury is going to be on the case and will whip them into shape in no time. They all ate really well this evening as the hotel gave us a much needed three-course meal and the ski/boot fitting was done very efficiently. They're now all asleep and getting some much needed rest before we wake them up @ 8.00am tomorrow morning ready to hit the slopes!

Sleepy Jean!

Off the ferry and the bus is silent as everyone has fallen asleep within minutes of starting our journey. Good night and I'll post some breakfast news in the morning.