Teamwork, conflict resolution and self-esteem

Seven students at Thomas Middlecott Academy in Kirton spent a day at RAF Wittering following three sessions in their school setting that had focused upon “Teamwork, conflict resolution and self-esteem.”

The visit to the base allowed the young people to apply what they had been working on in a completely new environment with different challenges to face. Some of the morning’s activities were blindfolded; challenging them to really focus on respectful listening skills and communication techniques which had been a focus of previous sessions.

Other activities included a “minefield” where the young people had to work together to cross the minefield. They learnt the importance of stepping aside and allowing others to relay information and placing trust in them to guide them. They also developed the importance of giving one another time and space to think whilst realising plenty can be learnt from others’ mistakes too and seeing that as a positive and that without those mistakes perhaps progress wouldn’t have been made.

Just before lunch they had a visit to the control tower as well as going up into the ‘fish bowl’ itself. They were shown how staff communicate and trust one another to keep pilots safe distances from one another in the sky. The comparison was made to the mobile phone game ‘Dots’

“I liked going up into Air traffic Control. They are very clever to do this” Jakub

In the afternoon the group did a fantastic orienteering course where they were split into teams. In between checkpoints each team had to complete problem solving activities such as ‘Cannibals and Missionaries’, ‘stick shapes’ and ‘brain gym games’.

On showing a distinct amount of resilience towards one of the brain gym activities, Ruslan said to Colby

“No way!!! You actually did it!”

The level of support and they gave to one another was great to see.

Providing his reflections on the “Sheep Pen” activity Sergeant Neil Taylor advised:

“In my opinion, you can’t get better than going first. Someone has to. You can get faster…but only from what you learn from the person that went first.”