Adventure Courses for 8-13 year olds at Kings Hall School - Week 1

This week I have been using Kings Hall School near Taunton as a base to deliver Adventurous Activity Courses for 8-13 year olds. The 4 day course running from Monday to Friday gives young people a taster in lots of different Outdoor and Adventurous Activities as well as a few alternative team games.

We had 11 students on this weeks course and mainly females which is really nice to see in a commonly male dominent course. All the students had a great time, some returning following the Easter Course and some booking on for next week as well. 

Thanks also to Josh, a work experience student from Richard Huish College who worked hard all week sorting kit, keeping an eye on students and joining in the activities.

This weeks programme went as follows:

Monday

AM - "Get to know you" and "problem solving" challenges 

PM - Archery and Alternative Invasion Games

Tuesday

AM - High Ropes at Vivary Adventure

PM - Orienteering and Slack-lining in Vivary Park

Wednesday

AM - Open Canoe trip on the River Tone

PM - Stand Up Paddle-boarding session on the River Tone

Thursday

AM - Bushcraft Session (Shelter Building, Campfire Cooking etc)

PM - Power-kiting and Ultimate Frisbee 

I try and make the programme as flexible as possible so we can change activities depending on the days weather and student input. On our Easter courses we included Mountain Biking and on future courses may include Raft Building, Kayaking and Rock Climbing.

The course is priced at £120 for the 4 days and includes lunch. There are still places available on next weeks course starting on Monday 11th August. If you would like to book your child in please see the poster below for booking details.

Ultimate Frisbee session for 'Sports Leaders- Level 1'

As part of the Sports Leaders Uk, Level 1 qualification students are required to look at 'Fair Play' and the 'role of the official'.

To achieve this I decided to use 'Ultimate Frisbee', a game played with no referee. It is played purely on trust via self officiating.

The session started with a quick warm up and a re-visit of the different  throws and the basic rules. This followed with 10 minutes play where the students were in two teams of 4 and self officiated. The game flowed and there were no disputes.

To understand the 'role of an official' the students then took it in turns to officiate the game for 5 minutes while I stepped in to make the teams even. As the session developed and the students became tired their competitive edge started to appear and the official was questioned, players tried to bend the rules and failed to play 'to the whistle'.

we concluded that certain sports require an official to keep the game flowing but with the right attitude you can compete in a sport without the need of a referee or umpire.

The first 10 minutes played with out an official really highlighted 'Fair Play' and all the students said how much more they enjoyed it than the 40 minutes that followed.