Longridge students scale new heights

LONGRIDGE Towers School students are scaling new heights, quite literally.

The School has launched a Munro Bagging Club, with students heading out into Scotland’s vast landscape to scale some of the 282 peaks that are high enough to be classified as ‘Munros’.

The expedition team lead is Mr Dodd, Head of Maths at Longridge. He explained why he decided to start the club.

“Because I love climbing Munros myself is the honest answer,” he said, “and I have had such enjoyment from it, and I always like to pass on what I enjoy doing to the pupils.

“I’ve done 31 myself to date and with the school we’ve now done four. We started last year and we’ll aim for another four or five next year [2026], and it’s a growing club so I’m looking forward to more of our pupils getting to experience the fun and achievement of ‘Munro bagging’.”

The benefits for the youngsters, he says, are varied and long-lasting.

“The first obvious benefit is fitness, because it does test you and I think some of the pupils have been surprised at how hard it has been but also how well they have done.

“But we do navigation and outdoor skills, and you develop a real appreciation of the surroundings we have, and basically just enjoying being out in the wild.

“But I believe it makes a real difference to school life. One of the parents said ‘they’ve made lots and lots of new friends, friends who probably wouldn’t have come across just in school life within the year groups. You see people out of other year groups as well, so they’ve broadened the horizons of people they interact with’.

“We also see confidence building in pupils from their sense of achievement, and that translates into their academic work. So, while we do it primarily for fun, the benefits for the pupils are wide.”

The Munro Bagging Club has stopped for the winter but the new programme of peaks for 2026 are being lined up. Anyone who would like to join the club should contact Mr Dodd.