PGL diary 3
PGL Diaries: Wednesday into Thursday
What a change in the weather! The sun came out yesterday and it is still shining now, accompanied by blue skies and smiling children.
Yesterday afternoon started with Jacob’s Ladder, a height and team work-activity. Miss Cale’s Year 5 girls, Alice, Luna, Tess, Poppy and Olivia, lived up to the reputation they are building as her fearless squirrels, willing to climb anything. In Mr Beech’s group, Elsie and Evie-Joy, despite not being the tallest in the group, showed tremendous stamina and dexterity in their climbing. Freida showed tremendous bravery in this session, deciding to stop on the fourth rung, but then pushing herself well beyond this: her never give up attitude was superb!
The next session was archery, and the children enjoyed honing their skills and playing games to win imaginary pizza-based prizes! In orienteering, Mr Beech and Mrs Apew’s group dug deep into energy reserves and went flat out for over an hour, with the team of Harry D, Rory and Decca drawing with Freddie, Elsie and Alice H as the overall victors.
The day ended with a big game called Passport to the World, which combined Geography skills with running around like a penguin! All the children were ready for bed last night, as were the adults!!!
Today begun with Trapeze, which involved children climbing up a tower and launching themselves off, taking a leap of faith to try and catch a trapeze. Harry M shot up the trapeze in around 12 seconds, which was the fastest in Miss Cale and Mrs Steven’s group. Louis was particularly proud of himself by completing this challenge, and he was beaming afterwards. Mia showed great tenacity here: she found it difficult to take the leap, but really pushed herself and climbed brilliantly. PGL is all about facing challenges, and Mia has done this consistently. Monty also showed a superb desire to improve his performance: the first time he stepped off the platform and swung through the air, which was an achievement in itself, but the second time he leapt and managed to catch the bar. Jessica decided that the Trapeze activity was a metaphor for catching your dreams, which made her hugely determined to leap off the platform and catch the bar! Jessica also set up a number of games of ‘Mushroom or Not’ for our team in between activities, which was surprisingly entertaining!
Raft Building turned out to be a lot more building and less time on the water than we wanted, but Finn and Gabe did have the dubious pleasure of pushing Miss Cale into the water! Adam and Alex were absolutely superb team players in this activity, and kept this theme going in their next activity, Survivor, where they were integral to the shelter building activity.
Nischay is such a logical boy, and he handled the problem solving activities brilliantly, being dubbed the Riddle King by Mrs Stevens! He also showed his determined side in all climbing activities.
We will finish today with Ambush, which is an extreme version of Hide and Seek, and we will take part in Archery or Orienteering followed by Abseiling tomorrow before we leave. Possibly the most challenging task ahead for your children will be packing and tidying their rooms though! Decca was promoted above Miss Cale as the room checker, and she had to have serious words with a group of boys because their room was too untidy and smelly!
We look forward to seeing you tomorrow!
