News › Latest News
Years 8 and 9 Study Skills Residential Trip to Bowles
July 2009
The yearly Study Skills Residential trip took place from Friday 26th to Sunday 28th June 2009 with 30 students and four members of staff attending.
The trip was open to students in Years 8 and 9 who had worked well throughout the academic year.
The coach departed the school at 4.00pm and arrived at Bowles just before 6.00pm, after some excellent manoeuvres by the coach driver through some tricky country lanes. On arrival, our first assignment was to get all the bags off the coach and up one of the biggest and steepest hills in Kent. Students were placed in their respective groups and given their rooms, so that they could change and settle in. The first task for the evening was the fire drill exercise followed by dinner; after which the groups carried out different activities until around 9.30pm.
Throughout the weekend the students took part in a variety of exciting and challenging activities. On the Saturday morning, the students also took part in an academic exercise looking at different learning styles (visual, audio, kinaesthetic).
The activities focused on physical enterprise exercises centred on leadership, team work, communication, organisation and leadership skills, dealing with risk and uncertainty. These included: orienteering, high and low ropes, skiing, swimming, rock climbing, abseiling and problem solving.
The weather was so wonderful throughout our stay. All students are to be congratulated as they were always positive, showed high standards of behaviour and acted in a responsible way, showing great maturity. They gave one hundred percent in all the activities they undertook and were a credit to themselves, their families and the school.
It was fantastic to see so many students shine whilst growing in confidence, self esteem, and self fulfillment, conquering their fears and having a real sense of achievement. Living and working closely with each other in a residential situation has helped students to develop understanding and awareness of other people and also learn to manage their own safety in real situations helped them to develop responsibility and maturity.
