On 8th June, Year 7 set off for the shores of Lake Windermere with their teachers, ready to be taken out of their comfort zone.  A key part of our Year 7 experience is uniting all students and providing outdoor education opportunities where they learn to work as a team, trust themselves and one another, and take on challenges they never thought possible – all while having the time of their lives!

Year 7 arrived at YMCA Lakeside excited for their full-on activity programme.   There were plenty of problem solving initiatives including a brilliant time raft building on the lakeshore,  developing archery skills and much teamwork and laughter as everyone took on many challenges, highlights being The Zip Wire and The Blue Tube challenge.

We asked Year 7 to share what they thought….. here are some of their highlights 

The trip has helped me to learn new skills, gain confidence in myself, think about how I communicate with others, listen more carefully to what others have to say, make some new friends and strengthened my existing friendships.

Year 7 had many ‘best things’ about the trip….. 

• the activities and groups because I liked how the groups really helped everyone to become better friends
• going in the river after the raft building because we all just had fun and didn’t care about how wet we got – it’s a Lake !
• being in different groups and then when we got back to the rooms we could tell all of our friends what we did in the day and they would tell us
• getting to learn new people in my group – I got very close to some people
• having hot chocolate at the end of the day and talking about the awesome things I did that day to my friends
•  having fun eating and rooming together being able to visit other peoples rooms
•  working on The Nightline – as it worked on our teamwork
• the Zip Line because I have never done it before so it was a good experience for me. And actually liked climbing up the ladder
• the raft building because our group managed to find a way in which we could all row at the same time by listening to what the other people in the group had to say 
• the instructors were really nice and they did not restrict us to do the regular things and let us be imaginative in the raft building for example – they gave an option to make a standard raft, or one from our imagination

Thank you to staff and YMCA Lakeside for a wonderful time.

More pictures over on Facebook.