Living in the Wild

On Monday 1st July, Year 7 took part in what is now an annual tradition: Bushcraft Day. The purpose of the day is three fold: to foster team work and collaboration amongst the year group, to afford pupils the opportunity to learn new skills, as well as pushing comfort zones of pupils and demonstrating courage. It is always a really popular day and this year was no exception.

The day began with half the year group taking part in wood carving. This included a mature and educational discussion on the role of knives and how responsibility and safety was key. Pupils then had the opportunity to be led to craft their very own tent pegs from small logs and knives. 

The other half of the group learnt the important skill of fire-making and after listening carefully, were soon toasting marshmallows on some roaring flames as a reward for their hard work! It was crucial pupils worked together, listened to each other and co-ordinated to be successful in this task, and they did a fantastic job!

After swapping tasks, followed by a hotly contested foraging competition (with a well deserved win by Nick N!)  and some fun team games, pupils broke for lunch before returning to undertake shelter building and food preparation. These tasks really defined collaboration and courage. Many of the pupils were most definitely outside their comfort zone having to pluck, and carve, pigeons, however the vast majority faced their fears with this and did a job an executive chef would be proud of! The most adventurous then enjoyed tasting the prepared pigeon once this had been cooked on the open fire. I think the favourite part of the day from the teacher’s perspective was the ‘testing’ of the shelters the pupils had built, which essentially involved huge water guns and a lot of running around!

It is always wonderful to see the pupils having fun and learning outside of the boundaries of the traditional classroom and Ian, the founder and CEO of Embers, who ran the day, commented particularly on how impressed he was by their eagerness to get involved and their listening skills.

"It was really fun, we got to use specialist equipment and I was able to work together with my friends," said Remy. 

"It was a completely different experience which took me out of my comfort zone. I enjoyed working with different people and especially liked the wood carving," said Isla.