On Tuesday the 19th June, two classes of year 4 primary children arrived at Suntrap for a fun-filled day of Orienteering. Having previously experienced the sport on their school grounds, everyone had a basic understanding of the skills required. After a short briefing in the ‘green hut’ the activities began with a fun ice breaker to see how the classes worked together. The task was simple, sit back to back with your partner and working together, stand up. The result was very mixed which set the tone for the rest of the day.
The next activity was a recap of the most important skill in Orienteering… Orientating the map towards North. Once competent at this a slight twist was introduced to see how they communicate with each other
After a short break it was time for a relay race. With everyone split into teams, they had to work together to complete a set course in the shortest time. This provided a great opportunity to explore Suntraps expansive grounds and start thinking for themselves.
Team 5 were victorious, very closely followed by team 2 which made an exciting climax to the relay.
After a packed lunch enjoyed outside in the sunshine, the children were split into teams again ready to head into Epping Forest for the final team challenge. Each team were given electronic equipment and a pack of maps and briefed on the ideal strategy to completing the challenge.
Following extensive discussions, we headed into the Forest to begin. The time limit was 1 hour and the rules were very straightforward. 15 minutes had passed and we could hear a lot of commotion nearby so went to investigate… When we got to the source of the noise, we found 10 children writhing around in a large pool of mud! It must have been one of very few muddy patches but they had managed to find it and subsequently get stuck. This put their teamwork to the real test because the stronger pupils went back to rescue teammates and recover abandoned shoes.
Despite warnings about skirting around the edge of mud patches in future, around 95% of the class ended up covered from head to toe. As for the orienteering, one team managed to steer clear of the mess and completed the task which made them the outright winners.
After 20 minutes spent at the outside tap, we ended the day with two classes of very muddy and wet children who all had huge grins on their faces. One child commented that ‘it was the best day out ever’ so I took that as a positive and went and collected the controls.
Thank you to Holywell School in Watford for coming and hopefully there weren’t too many upset parents and damaged washing machines!
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