Team Building

At the start of the term when Year 8 were on their Geography Field trip, there was a Team Building morning for the rest of the school. It was great to see the year groups doing something different and importantly having a lot of fun; they understood the importance of working as a team, mixing and getting to know children they didn’t know very well.

Year 3 had a number of different activities, mainly done in House teams, so for example a House ‘March By’. Each House had to choose a leader to get their team into shape and march past the teachers (in formation) giving a salute as they passed by. They learnt that as well as needing co-ordination and timing, they needed a decisive leader, co-operation and good listening skills!

The Year 4 team building morning saw the boys undertaking an orienteering course around the school. The boys were put into teams of four and had to use their map reading skills to complete the course in as fast a time as possible. Great fun was had by all.

Year 5 excitedly met on the terrace for their activities.  To begin with, they were asked to silently sort themselves into age order. This was not an easy task as talking was completely forbidden.  Plenty of sign language and waving of arms was in evidence!  Then they moved on to the main task which was a treasure hunt that involved solving riddles and collecting letters.  These letters spelt out a location in the school and the first team to get there was the winner. The weather was beautiful and the boys ran from location to location refreshing with water several times.  To finish, Mr Wyatt asked the boys to set a world record for creating a tennis ball.  The children had to work out how to sit on each others’ laps in a circle and ‘log-roll’ each other across the grass!  The activities were great fun and we were really impressed with the way the boys worked together and had to think as a team.

Year 6 enjoyed various activities across Yard, beginning with a drainpipe tipping game and then a series of activities in a round. Activities included: crossing the River of Death; Untangle the Tangle; F1 Bean Blowing; Landmark Art; a Blindfolded Obstacle Course. It impressed everyone how keenly and cohesively the boys worked. Credit to them!

 

‘Year 7 were put into small mixed groups which was a great opportunity for the boys to get to know everyone. At the beginning, we all went for a lovely walk. On our walk, some of us ate blackberries and rolled down the hill. We learnt about different people’s personality including teachers’. After the walk, we created our own game with specific equipment, for which we created our own rules and we did a demonstration. It was great fun as we had to put our ideas together to make one fun game that could be played. We enjoyed a relay activity in the most creative and funny way. We, of course, all won!

Mr Williams had a big rope he swung around for us to jump high; we got caught easily at first but then, as a team, we got better and better at working together. It is certainly one of our highlights, we all loved it! In our teams, we did a ‘caterpillar activity’ – again we had to be fairly organised to not get caught. The best tactic was to form a circle with the end of the tail. It was a great day and a busy morning. We all had a fantastic time and we learnt new skills and a lot about others in our tutor group. It was fun and very well organized.’

Moby Andreae, Oscar Brown, Edward Horsfield, Archie Lloyd. Year 7