Our Trip to Sandown Park
On Friday 24th February some students from Year 8 and Year 9 went to Sandown Park Race Course for a Maths event.
This was a rewards trip to recognise how well we are doing in maths. We went with Mr Brown and Mr Mastracola and travelled by the school mini bus to Sandown Park Race Course. We shared the day with students from John Fisher 
School. We were split into two groups and then our day began.
We started off our day by going to the weighing room and the jockeys changing room; the weighing room is where we learnt how heavy a jockey needs to be to ride a horse round a certain track, we also learnt what happens and what they do in the weighing room. Then we weighed ourselves. Afterwards we went in to the changing rooms where we learnt more about the arrangements and went to the most important bit of the changing room which is the sauna. Jockeys use the sauna for burning off any unwanted fat.
We visited the parade ring where we talked about what happens inside where all the horses walk round. We had to estimate how big we thought the parade ring was, and then we went round with a metre stick and measured the area. After this activity we had a break.
After break we went outside on to the race course and we looked at the fences and learned their different names and the history of their names. We guessed how far the horses would jump over the fence then we got to run the last furlong (100 meters) of the race course!
We were allowed to look at the jockey’s clothes and what they wear to make themselves lighter or heavier. We took turns for each activity so that everyone got to experience all aspects of the visit.
Following a lunch break together we all went outside and watched an actual horse race! It was absolutely fantastic.
Ella, 8MDP
