One Friday in September, our entire Year 7 cohort were taken to Waddow Hall for a day of team building and bonding.
Students were in mixed groups not necessarily from their own form, so that hopefully they would make new acquaintances outside their existing friendship groups. Unfortunately, it had rained heavily on previous days, so the river was very high and too dangerous for us to participate in water based activities. However, the leaders had replaced water with other exciting activities such as the zip wire.
After being shown how to land safely, students were fitted with special sturdy harnesses and helmets and our plucky Year 7’s gamely scaled a high tower to access the ropes and a series of safety clips, before leaping off the platform onto the wire and the speedy return to solid ground! Each pupil had two goes on the zipwire and they didn’t seem to be nervous about the rapid descent at all.
After lunch which was thankfully under cover, students took part in other highly challenging activities including the Jacob’s ladder. This involved getting a team of 3 to the top of a horizontal row of logs hung between trees, and the crate tower which saw pupils stacking crates as high as possible in 10 minutes. During both these activities the students were clipped onto a safety rope with a harness, which was good news, as many students lost their hand or foot holds and were left dangling in the air until the rest of the group lowered them to safety.
There were a number of other activities which required students to work as a team and help each other out, and although some pupils found this very difficult, we were very pleased that all the students were extremely encouraging towards each other and everyone joined in enthusiastically.
A highlight of the day was the cake sale. The Year 7’s had embraced the Macmillan big coffee morning theme and created a huge selection of delicious cakes. Mr Procter who organised the cake sale reported a grand total of £143.00, well done everyone.
Mrs Cox
