Form 2 enjoyed a fun day getting to know each other on the St John’s playing fields at the end of their first week of term. The children were involved in a variety of team building activities and had to effective communications skills to work effectively as a team. The children in all three of the Form 2 classes were put into mixed groups, enabling new friendships to form whether they were new to the school or not.
The children were kept physically active and mentally stimulated by a wide range of challenges such as working out how to get into height order without stepping off the line, how to get your team first across the line on just two planks by walking at the same pace and time and how to carry water containers with a stretcher as a team, to name a few.
All the games were designed to strengthen the bonds within the year group, test their communication and listening skills, develop trust in their teams and, above all, to have fun. The children were encouraged to think about the ‘Mindset for Learning dispositions’ such as collaboration, imaginative, enjoying, risk taking, perseverance and rigorous.
One Form 2 child involved in the day explained, “All the activities were fun and we had to work well as a team to solve each problem fairly and positively.” Another child said, “When we came back to class we spoke about which particular mindset for learning we had used and our favourite games – mine was skiing because you had to concentrate hard to move the planks as one!”