On Thursday over 60 sixth year leaders, along with 8 teachers, took to their wellies for a day packed full of team building, high adrenaline sports and skill activities to build stronger relationships and develop their teamwork skills.
The 8 prefect groups each took part in several activities including Mountain Biking, Archery, Bush Craft, Orienteering, and Problem Solving.
When we first arrived my group was allocated to Orienteering as our first activity. We gathered at the front of the Chatelherault visitor centre and were introduced to the two members of staff. They then separated us into groups of three or four within our larger group of 10, to issue different locations to find giving us a map as our navigation tool. Each group was handed four areas to find, the answer to each was a type of animal. This activity encouraged us to communicate in small groups with people we don’t usually get the chance to work with, building team morale.
The second activity our group took part in was Problem Solving which included some increasingly challenging tasks but also some really enjoyable ones. This included; timed challenges where you had to pass a golf ball through a number of tubes past a course of cones – getting everybody in the team involved.
As well as this, the excitement of knot tying. This involved tying ropes together to lift a container from within a danger-zone area we weren’t allowed to enter, to then lift it out and place the container gently on the ground without dropping it.
Also, there was a maze of cones where we had to remember the certain path and if we got any steps incorrect we were to return to the start. In this we listened to the rest of the groups opinions and got their input on the best route to take. Finally we had to look at a picture of a jigsaw for 10 seconds then placing all the jigsaw pieces that were in front of us into the right order. This activity taught us the difference between democratic and autocratic leadership.
All of the groups then met back at the car park where we had set as our meeting place and had a 45 minute lunch break in the main visitor centre.
After our long awaited lunch we then returned to the meeting point once again splitting into our groups. This was then our Mountain Biking time, our group were all given our bikes and helmets, walked through how to use the gears and then given a map to know where we were headed on our journey – and of course taught to be aware of the safety of others. We set off as one big group but began to slowly separate as we progressed down our trail. To the amusement of the members of my group (not so to myself) I managed to fall off my bike, meaning mud was spread all over my back and side, luckily I wasn’t going fast at this point in time so it wasn’t a bad fall. I found Mountain Biking to be the best part of the day as it was high paced and suited my thrill seeking needs.
Finally we took part in Bush Craft which introduced us to living in the wild. We were taught how to build shelter out of sticks and leaves, how to collect water and what food you were able to eat in a forest area. We had to build shelter out of sticks and leaves which was big enough and strong enough to support 9 people in it, which we were able to accomplish by working once again in smaller groups each group building a certain side of our creation. After we had learnt all we could on building shelter we then went on to trying some of the food you were able to just pick out of the ground also identifying multiple plants that you couldn’t eat.
