It was a busy day at the Adventure Rope Course with just short of 90 pupils from St George’s Junior School and over a dozen staff and parents lending a hand. The kids were split into 8 groups, with a couple of adults in each, for the course of the day. The 8 instructors stayed on the same activity all day, so that we could get into a rhythm to make the most of the limited time available from a very packed program for the day.

The activities we had running, included the Leap of Faith, the Giant Swing, the Adventure Tunnels, the Climbing wall, the Jacobs Ladder, the Crate Stack and Abseiling as well as some problem solving tasks. I found myself on the Jacobs Ladder for the day which was one of the more pressured from the time point of view. However, the kids started to get themselves organised with a little encouragement which helped considerably.

The Jacobs Ladder is one activity that certainly requires good teamwork and co-operation in order to maximise the group’s progress up the ladder. Some groups seemed to really grasp this concept, going out of their way to help each other, sometimes sacrificing their personal progress for the sake of the group’s progress. Others, however, find it hard to come out of an individual competitive mindset and leave their team mates behind only to discover that they need them later on.

The Adventure Rope Course was certainly a noisy place to work today. With 90 or so excitable primary school children shouting, screaming and laughing, you noticed a definite calmness once they’d left! However, they were great fun to work with and every one of them gave things a go to a point that they felt comfortable with. Thanks for a fantastic day.