Friday 25th September

Well what an enterprising week it turned out to be.  It was planned as a week where our Year 8s and Year 6s were off developing independent thinking, teamwork and personal resilience skills in either setting up businesses or at the outdoor activity centre.  However as it turned out it wasn’t only the children who had to do some quick thinking at the end of the week.

First to Enterprise Week for the Year 8s, there will be more detailed write ups on the website from Miss Devine who led the week and by some of the Year 8s; however in a nutshell the week started with some team building exercises led by the army, then there were a series of activities focusing on how to set up and run a business culminating in their Dragons’ Den pitches for investment.
Finally they all had some physical and mental problem solving challenges to puzzle through on Friday, it was an incredibly successful week with all the children buzzing with enthusiasm and full of great ideas and the Dragons all said how impressed they were with the slickness of the presentations and their knowledge of their businesses.  Now is the hard part – using the investment to turn the ideas into profit!!

The Year 6s arrived on Monday armed with suitcases and teddies ready for a big adventure – off to PGL (Ask your children what it ‘allegedly’ stands for) in Liddington.  Again there will be a report and some photos posted on the website but when I spoke to Miss Dobson on her return she told me that the children were all brilliant but what goes on tour stays on tour!!

That should be the end of the story but oh no, sadly there was late drama when one of the coaches had a catastrophic engine failure on the M25. Some of the children had to wait for another coach to come and collect them – easily done in Friday night traffic!! Again the children were fantastic, taking it all in their stride as an extended part of the adventure.  I cannot praise the staff enough for their quick thinking and calmness in dealing with a potentially dangerous situation and the children too deserve huge credit.  It was a day to truly be proud of my Ralphies – big and small!!

The 6s who remained in school also had a fun packed week being learning mentors for our Year 5s as well as making some wonderful concoctions in the Food Tech room.

Fingers crossed for a ‘normal’ drama free week next week!!