Two Year 8 weekend Residentials at Pendarren Outdoor Activities Centre South Wales

Summary of the project

Pendarren Outdoor Activities Centre is a residential house in South Wales fully equipped and staffed to run Activities Weekends for all ages. Two weekend residentials were booked accommodating 35 Year students, 8 Year 10 students and 4 staff on each of the weekends. The first residential was offered to girls only and the second to boys only.

Swanlea school’s intake is 75% boys and 25% girls. Most of our students are Bengali muslims. In the past it has been difficult to encourage girls to attend residentials for cultural and religious reasons. Therefore the decision was taken to offer a girls only, female staffed weekend. The large uptake of this offer justifies the decision. The activities covered over both weekends were: canoeing, rock climbing, mountain walking, orienteering and line walking.

It was decided that the Year 10 SPARC (Swanlea Students Are Resolving Conflict) students would also attend the weekend to assist in the smooth running of the programme and to enable them to experience the exercise of responsibility this would entail. The SPARC students in Swanlea School are selected on the basis of their positive role modelling and this played a large part in their presence over both weekends.

Reasoning behind the activity, including business context

The vast majority of Swanlea students rarely visit outside of their immediate area (Whitechapel) let alone the beautiful countryside of South Wales. Fewer still would have had the opportunity to engage in the activities Pendarren were able to offer. All of the activities offered require team building, team work, problem solving, learning new skills, awareness of others, risk evaluation and limitation, and forward planning. These skills play an essential part in developing Enterprise provision at Swanlea School and links in well with the Merrill Lynch Enterprise and Entrepreneurship programme.

Although Pendarren is administered by Haringey Borough in London it clearly offers activities which are part of the Service Sector of Wales’ tourist economy. Engagement in the activities heightened the students’ awareness of the commercial context of the provision of such activities as well as the provision of accommodation and catering facilities.

On both weekends a 50 seater coach picked up Swanlea students and staff at 1.30pm. A hot evening meal was prepared and was waiting for our arrival at Pendarren House. All the Health and Safety aspects of the weekend were explained, rooms allocated, rules discussed and programme explained. Each weekend group was subdivided into four equal sized groups.

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