Level 1 Blue Skies 2016/2017 launches at Barnes Wallis Academy

Tuesday 13^th December was the official start of the Blue Skies Level 1 programme at Barnes Wallis Academy.

The students started the day by being introduced to their Inspirational RAF Mentors. These mentors will be working with the students throughout their whole Level 1 programme.

The students were shown their educational booklets, had the course explained to them and how they will work side by side with each other. The students then wrote down their own personal goals and aspirations for what they would like to achieve by the end of the programme. In order to help them achieve these goals and get the most out of every session, the students came up and designed their own learning agreement. They all signed and agreed to abide by this whilst on the programme.

The students were then thrown into a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) water rocket challenge. Each mentor was designated to a team to help them get to know each other further. The students were split into three groups and had to design specific features to enable their water rockets to achieve an objective. This ranged from an aerodynamics team who wanted to achieve the greatest height to a parachute team who wanted to achieve the safest landing.

It was a fun day and really put STEM into a practical, fun challenge. But most importantly it allowed the students to work with their adult mentors and get to know each other a lot more before going onto the RAF bases with them to complete their challenging Level 1 programme. Watch this space to see how they get on…