Dutch students welcomed to Westbourne
On Tuesday 23rd April, the pupils of Years 6, 7, 8 and 9 spent the day with pupils from a school in Holland.
The pupils met at Cosmeston Lakes for a fun packed day, which included team building and orienteering activities. Although everyone took wellington boots and raincoats and prepared for the worst, it turned out to be a bright, warm day with lots of sunshine.
“Our first team activity was to design a team logo, name, song and motto. We then had to present our ideas to everyone else and we were marked on our performances.The second activity was to make a ‘human machine’. For this activity we had to get a ball from the start of the machine to end – which was extremely challenging as we had limited use of our hands and legs and our machine had to make a noise! It goes without saying that some machines ran more smoothly than others!
For the next team challenge we blindfolded one person, while the rest of the team stood, forming a shape and holding a rope. The blindfolded person had to move a hoop around all of the other team members without touching them, or the rope. This challenge tested our communication skills.The fourth activity was a race, where all group members had to join their feet together, (as in a three legged race,) and finish the race without moving their feet apart. The team that came first had a very creative strategy where everyone picked Kai up and hopped to the finish line!
We all had a lovely lunch by the lake in the sunshine and used this relaxation time to find out interesting facts about our team and get to know each other.
After lunch we all had an orienteering task. Whilst during the orienteering, we had a map and we had to navigate our way around the lakes and trees at Cosmeston looking for clues as we went. We had a great deal of fun developing our geography skills.
Thank you to Mrs Barber and the staff for organising such a fun packed day. We look forward to doing it again next year!”
By Samantha and Kate, Year 8