GBIS Adventure Challenge Week!
Last week saw a group of Year 8s and 9s join our partner school, O Castro British International School, from Vigo in Spain for the inaugural GBIS Adventure Challenge week. The aim of the week was to make the pupils as self sufficient as possible in a variety of adventurous challenges. The pupils arrived on Sunday evening and were soon put to work setting up the Stonar camp site and cooking their first meal over camp stoves. An evening of team building followed and then a long night with Mrs Bennett trying to keep a very excited group of children quiet in the campsite!
On Monday the group headed to the Brecon Beacons for an adventurous waterfall walk in the Ystrafelte walk where we scrambled down the side of waterfalls and explored cave entrances. The group were super enthusiastic and raring to go so we then went to climb the 3 peaks of Corn Du, Pen Y Fan and Cribyn. Despite this being the sort of route people would do as a whole day expedition our team shot up and down the mountains at fantastic speed and took about 2 ½ hours to complete the 3 peaks! The staff were struggling to keep up!
On return to the campsite Mrs Bouchard had ordered a stack of 20 extra large Dominos pizzas and everyone feasted before collapsing into their tents.
Tuesday's activities were based on the campsite and the group set to work collecting firewood for their day of self sufficient meals. Breakfast was cooked over open fires and a continuous production line of bacon sandwiches and eggy bread (absolutely delicious) was produced. At the same time, the pioneering group learnt knots and built their own wash stands. Then it was on to orienteering to earn items to build a shelter. The shelters weren't altogether successful, but a brave team from O Castro did sleep in theirs until torrential rain forced them back to the tent at 3 in the morning!
Supper was cooked on camp fires and Mrs Worrall joined us for marshmallows and campfire games until it was time to head out for a night navigation exercise, finding our way along a 3 mile route back to school, navigating my map and headtorch, returning to camp and the tents at 11.30.
Our last day was a self supported expedition from Castle Combe to Stonar, giving our visitors the opportunity to see the prettiest village in England and try out their navigation skills. The groups navigated (almost) faultlessly and despite not quite making it back to school in time (and being very annoyed at being collected by minibus) showed themselves to be competent and enthusiastic with fantastic team work.
As the first event of its kind for Globeducate it was a great success and we look forward to developing it further next year. Huge thanks to Mr Burns, Mrs Bouchard and Mrs Worrall for all their help.
