The aim of this week was to practise our teaching/veileading skills and organisation with students from Tangen College aged between 17 and 20. We would stay here for 3 nights and each afternoon a different school class would come for one night and the next morning. Prior to the programme, we were told of the amount of students coming each day and we had to organise 10 different activities for them to take part in, the activities would run in a station system where the students would move from each activity to the next where there would be 2 or 3 of us International students leading them. The activities consisted of: Canoeing, Abseiling, Orienteering, Stretchers, Fire lighting, Shelters and 4 group dynamic based games. The activities would run as a competition and the students could earn points from each station for their pre-set groups based on: how well they do the activity and how well they work together as a team (the group dynamic). As Veileaders, the main thing we try to enhance is the group dynamic of which we are working in or with, therefore this was the most important focus of the week and we wanted to encourage the students to really work together.

Day 1:

A few of us arrived at the area Helleviga earlier than the others, to set up some orienteering markers. We had gapahuks to stay in for the week which was nice! Where we were staying was not so close to the area where we were doing the activities so we dropped off our packs and headed to the area. The walk took around 30 minutes and when we arrived we got caught in a terrible storm. We ended up sitting in the shelter for about 4 hours waiting for it to stop.. but it didn’t. Around 2pm the rest of the group came down to the area. Completely soaked. Although the weather was terrible we had to set up the stations as the students would arrive at 6. The rubbish weather meant that everyone was pretty de-motivated but we got on with it and worked together to get it done as quick at possible! We then organised how we would structure the first evening e.g. who would brief the students on what would happen this evening and tomorrow etc. and we organised score cards for the competition. 

When the students arrived they also didn’t seem so motivated. Today were between 50 and 60 students. We all made sure to seem really enthusiastic about the evening even though the weather wasn’t on our sides. After meeting everyone and introducing ourselves we got the activities underway. My first station was a series of group dynamic games with Miriam, these involved: spiders web (everyone from the group must pass through a series of ropes attached between two trees without touching the ropes) this worked really well as the groups were forced to help each other out in order to get anywhere, key punch (a collection of cards numbered 1 – 20 face down, the group had to memorise the numbers and turn them back over in order – we made this more difficult each time by not allowing the team to speak to each other and just having one person touch the cards etc.) and the human knot (standing in a circle everyone takes the hands of someone else to form a knot and the aim is to get back into the original ciclre without letting go). The activities ran for 40 minutes each and then a 5 minute change over period to move onto the next. I think our games worked quite well, although they didn’t seem motivated at the beginning, they really got into it and enjoyed helping each other out. Miriam and I found that sometimes we had completed the games before 40 minutes was up, so we added a few short games in their just to keep them busy for the extra time. We finished all actives at around 9pm and then headed back to our area.

Day 2:

We wanted to start the day at 8.30 so we made sure to set off walking early enough to get there and be ready to start ASAP. We were on the same stations and the next 6 groups of activities went really fast and everyone worked together really well. At the end of all the activities, us leader gathered together and spoke about how we would decide who gets one of three prizes. Of course we gave one prize to the group who earned the most overall points, then we decided the other two would go to the group who we thought put in the most effort and who were the most enjoyable to work with. We chose this together really well and all agreed on the decisions.

Once we had handed out the prizes we asked for feedback from the students and they all seemed to have a great time! Now it was time for us guys to take a few hours break and get ready for the next group this evening.

We decided that for the next group we would rotate stations to avoid getting bored and to give each other chance to try something else. The way we did this was by having one person from the original station stay on there for the first round of tonights group when they arrived – to show the next people how they led this station. Once the next students arrived at 6 i moved onto the stretcher building station. The weather was much better today and the students had heard good things about the trip so they seemed more into it. There were just 40 students today so we combined 2 of the group dynamic stations so that the groups weren’t too small.

During the first round Sharon demonstrated to me how she had been leading the stretcher building. She was really good at this and the students had so much fun! This station ran by firstly giving a quick demonstration of the stretcher we would be building and how to safely tie a volunteer from the group in. They were given chance to ask questions and practise parts of it at the end. Once the demonstration was over the students were left to re-create the stretcher alone and to get someone tied in safely enough to carry them around 100m (to the toilet and back to the area) the group were timed from when they started to when they returned tom carrying the person and the points were based on their time and again, their group dynamic. I really enjoyed being on this station and tried my best to make it realistic and the students had a lot of fun carrying someone as fast as they could!

Building stretchers

Day 3:

We were ready to start again nice and early and the stations ran smoothly this morning, everyone had a good nights sleep and the weather was nice so everyone was motivated to do their best. After all the stations ran we again, decided on who would get the prizes. This was more difficult because this group of students were all fantastic and all worked really well. We asked for feedback again and it was clear that they all had a great time! This made us feel great that our hard work was really paying off.

Once the students left i decided to have a few hours sleep as i wasn’t feeling so good today. The final group of students arrived again at 6, there weren’t so many today, between 20 and 30 girls. We moved onto the next stations in the same way as before where someone shows us how it is run first. The final station we were on was minefield, this involved an obstacle course within the forrest area going under and over rocks and trees etc, two people in each group would be blindfolded and the others had to guide them around the course just by giving instructions and without touching them. This was another fun station and the students had a lot of fun here. In some of the groups were finished before the 40 minutes so i said the students could lead me and Miriam around the course if they wanted to. They loved this idea and it was quite scary to do without being able to see anything. Once we had finished this evenings activities i still wasn’t feeling great so we headed back and i went straight back to sleep.

Day 4:

Today was the final day here in Helleviga! I was feeling much better today and full of energy for the last morning of activities. We ran the final 4 stations this morning and the group dynamic of the girls had really improved from yesterday, they seemed more comfortable ith each other and more confident. This was great and it seemed that they also had a really great time! We did the final prize giving and helped them pack up their stuff ready to go home. Once we had cleaned both the activity and sleeping areas we headed home.

Learning Outcomes:

This was a fantastic trip! It was really good to finally get chance to practise ouot leading skills which we had been working on the whole semester, it was good that we were able to plan and organise everything ourselves without someone being the main leader. This really showed me how well we Internationals can work together as a team and compared to the beginning of the semester we had a great group dynamic ourselves this week. We all had  lot of fun to teach and also take part in the activities. I also got chance to see how others led the activities compared to me, this was good to see how different things did and didn’t work and how i can use this to improve my own leading practise.