Year 6 Residential
We arrived at Kingswood safe and sound and were given a tour of the site which used to be a police training centre. Our first task was to make our beds. Watching the children getting the duvets into duvet covers entertained the adults greatly!
The children were most excited about the first activity, the aerial runway, a long zip wire, and enjoyed the exhilarating ride.
After dinner which all the children ate hungrily, they created bottle rockets which they fired across the square. Their final activity was a mini Olympics.
On Monday, after breakfast, we took part in an Obstacle Challenge. The children worked together to go round a course, where they climbed, swung and balanced.
This was followed by the Leap of Faith which involved climbing to the top of a tall post, balancing on a platform and leaping off to grab a trapeze. Year 6 all pushed themselves and cheered on to help each other achieve their best.
After lunch they built shelters using wooden poles and sat in our shelters. Next they had team tech where they had different challenges to built towers out of plastic connecting pieces. After that they did the Nightline blindfold trail. they had to find their way around a maze on hands and knees. The children loved getting muddy as they crawled through the puddles on the course.
After dinner some children played Laser Tag while the rest played sports in the hall. The busy day finished with songs and games around the camp fire.
On Tuesday, the first activity was abseiling. The children were so much more confident today and encouraged and helped each other. They enjoyed scaling the wall of a tower as they slid down the rope. Then they climbed up to the top of another pole for High Equilibrium and tried balancing on a huge seesaw. They worked brilliantly with their partners.
After lunch they worked in teams to solve problems. They had to work together to climb across a trail of tyres without falling off and balance on another huge seesaw, this time much closer to the ground. Then they were back up another tall pole, the high-adrenalin Powerfan, climbing to a platform which they stepped off and dropped slowly to the ground.
The children also enjoyed learning the basics of fencing.
Afterwards they all competed in a scrap heap challenge where they had to create a structure to protect a water balloon. They loved watching the packages drop and waited to see which water balloons survived.
Wednesday was the final day. The children worked in partners to climb Jacobs Ladder – with wide and unevenly spaced rungs. The key skills were co-ordination, communication and partnership. Then they all experienced the thrill of the 3G swing where they were strapped on to a swinging bar, winched up by the other members of the group and released to swing through the sky. The children loved the thrill of the ride!
Overall, the Kingswood experience really developed the children’s independence, teamwork, resilience and communication. The growth in the children’s confidence and relationships with each other was amazing.
