The University of Oxford owns one of the most researched pieces of woodland in the world, and oddly, in the middle of it, is a Swiss Chalet.

The chalet has just had a major makeover, and been transformed from the witches’ hut of your nightmares into a rather chic abode. Having shown ourselves to be enthusiasts for bringing teenagers into the woods to learn about the research there, we were excited to be asked to test out the chalet as a venue for student sleepovers.

Our lovely friends at Westminster Academy school in Paddington mustered a group of eight very enterprising year 13 IB students who agreed to get on a train to Oxford for a weekend in the unknown. The weather was atrocious so armed with spare wellies and mountains of food we went to meet them at the station, with some trepidation about whether they were going to enjoy their weekend.

We need not have worried. They were the most fantastic group - enthusiastic about exploring Oxford, and open to new adventures. We did a whistlestop tour of some of our favourite bits of Oxford - diving into the famous Norrington Room in Blackwell's bookshop, gawping at the ceiling of Exeter College chapel, being warmly welcomed out of the rain by the Education Manager at the Museum of Natural History, and ending up with tea and biscuits and a fast and fascinating talk at the Environmental Change Institute.

Thence to the woods in the gathering gloom, a communal cook up and an early night. The following day was a gentle, drippy exploration of research projects in the woods, a fungal foray, writing some poetry, and close encounters with Dani, the Bat Lady's, “education” bats. We passed the evening carving pumpkins and baking apple crumbles. One of the students made custard from scratch!

The sun finally shone as we delivered our brave recruits back to the station on Sunday morning, leaving the pumpkins on guard back at the chalet.

We have proved that you can have a huge amount of fun and learn a lot in 36 hours. We are now keen to do it again …..

Kim Polgreen