Joline talks about our SCITT team-building day!

 


What a day!  

 

We didn’t know what was coming when we agreed to a trip to The Mill Adventure Base with our Trainee Crew and our Captains Adam and Sally. However, we could have guessed that when a bunch of nearly qualified teachers gets together it must be fun – and it was!!! An unforgettable experience. 

 

When we met in the morning, it wasn’t just the rain that made us hide our faces in our hoods but also the high ropes we saw when entering the location. What a terrifying view at half 9 in the morning... unless you have a group of people that encourage you to overcome your fears!  

Who would have thought that at the end of the day we’d all be a little bit braver, a little bit prouder and a little bit happier?! 

 

After some quick pair activities to build initial trust, we were ready to go to our first little group task. Balancing on a rope whilst being supported by our teammates. We all managed brilliantly, and in the discussion afterwards we found that the keys to success were communication, trust and support. Luckily, we’ve all worked on being reflective practitioners for the last 8 months so it wasn’t difficult to come up with those keys.   

 

The next stop was a little bit more nerve-wracking: high ropes. And not only high-ropes, but getting to the top as a team of four and holding hands while leaning back. Phew! The most difficult bit was to find space to stand with up to four people on the little square, or alternatively, the seesaw! 


After the high ropes, we had a long lunch break, in which we enjoyed home-baked goods (shout out to Claire, who made the best vegan brownies I have ever tasted) and had lovely chats about “Gott und die Welt”, simply: everything, as we’d say in German. 

  

With full tummies and in a good mood, we headed off to the wet part of the day. We were given outfits, which couldn’t quite keep up with Baywatch, yet kept us nice and warm. Ready to win a race, we started canoeing in groups – this time accompanied by the primary school cohort. What a blast!  

Just a little fun fact: Never say at the start “I think we are very good at it”, unless you want to be last in the race and end up having someone falling in the water.  

 

 

I think we all agreed that it had been an amazing experience. It was nice to see each other again after months and months of meeting online. Even nicer to see that the chemistry that we all had felt online and on WhatsApp was even better in person. I hope that we’ll have more of these days in the future, and hopefully beyond teacher training, as we only just started to get to know each other face-to-face!


Joline Kärber, MFL trainee





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