Leadership and taking opportunities is a key part of life at Costessey High School in Norfolk.  This is one of the reasons why year 10 students from Costessey High came along to a Future Foundations programme at PGL Grantham.  This experience gave them the opportunity to practice their leadership skills with their fellow year 9 Costessey students.

Students were put through their paces in groups mixed with year 9 and 10’s by participating in trust exercises. How hard is it to fall off a 3ft high wall backwards into the arms of ten people? Well…quite, actually!

In the first afternoon, year 10’s had the chance to learn different activities, run by the PGL activity centre.  They would then go to lead the year 9’s doing the same activity. While the year 10’s were busy with their task, year 9’s got the opportunity to visit Loughborough University to bust the myths surrounding University life. Many students had never been to a University before, and whilst secondary school students are led towards higher education, many don’t know what it is all about.

With a tour around the grand campus and having the opportunity to look in on the magnificent sports facilities, deemed to be used by the Japanese Olympic contenders for the 2012 London Olympics, students were able to question current students and demystify University life.  Following the tour and team building activities, the teams formed together to share their experiences at the University and how it was to become a leader.

During the second day at PGL, the teams had their chance to try their teamwork and trust skills in the PGL activities, such as by climbing 30ft poles and jumping on to a trapeze. They were then able to have the opportunity to spend 20 minutes talking about themselves and their goals with a Future Foundations member in a one-on-one conversation. This was a fantastic opportunity for the students to reflect back on their experiences at PGL, but also to share what is holding them back at school or in their lives in general.

The year 10’s then had the chance to take all over the leadership skills that they had learnt and lead a PGL activity themselves. This was a great success; as they pulled together as a team to lead the students from the year below.

The students from Costessey really gelled with the other years, realising that they stood alone as people and not just as a group of people of the same age. They all have similar fears and goals and thoroughly worked hard to get as much as they could out of two full days with the Future Foundations team at PGL.