| Year 9 Residential Experience |
On Friday 26th March, Mr Eldon and staff took a group of Year 9 boys on a residential weekend to the Conway Centre. One of the main functions of the weekend was developing team-building skills and in this regard it was a great success. On the Friday night they attended Mr Eldon's session on revision and how to break down detailed notes into more manageable chunks. This technique is called ‘Going for 5’ and it allows a student to learn information in stages. The first stage is learning the 5 key points about a topic. Once this foundation is in place pupils can flesh out their knowledge by learning other information. After this we looked at turning key words into ‘Acrostics’ – when you use the first letter of each word to form a sentence. This sentence can help recall of these key words in exams.
Saturday morning was spent working on English, Maths and Science in preparation for the SAT tests at the beginning of May. It was encouraging to see that the lads actually recalled more information than they expected and this seemed to boost their confidence.
The boys were all intrigued as to the content of
the Saturday
afternoon session and were delighted when they found out the first
two hours would be spent on the centre’s climbing wall. The
boys were responsible for the safety of each other and worked
hard in small. Following the climbing we were set team building
challenges outside, such as getting all the team over a 12 foot
wall and completing an obstacle course whilst keeping large objects
off the floor. Again groups had to work together to make sure
everyone was involved and safe.
Saturday night was spent mourning the poor performance of the England rugby team and testing Josh George’s encyclopaedic memory of football statistics. Michael Wood and Mr Molyneux spent the evening talking about alloy wheels and Daniel Hutchinson kept us all amused with his impersonations.
Sunday morning proved to be the highlight of the trip as we all faced the challenges of the ‘High Ropes Course’. Again the responsibility for safety was taken by the group and we each took turns to support each other both verbally and using ropes and harnesses. Many of the boys and staff confronted their fears and vertigo, completing some frightening challenges. Next was the ‘Trapeze’. Again the boys had to climb a 60 foot tree and edge onto a tiny platform. Facing the platform was a trapeze, suspended on wire. The simple task was to take a leap of faith and jump from the platform and grab onto the trapeze. In reality the gap between the platform and the trapeze seemed immense.
The coach journey home was blissfully quiet and many thanks
to all the parents who came to the school early to pick up their
sons. The weekend I hope reinforced to the boys their fantastic
potential and the skills needed to make the most of the opportunities
presented to them.
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