300 pupils enjoy team bonding during Outdoor Week

Outdoor Week is firmly embedded in our summer calendar now and gives all third formers an active and varied week of outdoor education.  

The week revolves around a 3 day ‘Mountain Marathon’ competition in the Shropshire Hills where teams compete to visit as many checkpoints as possible. This also involved a night at our base campsite at Womerton near the Long Mynd.  

The two other days involved visiting a Shropshire Wildlife Trust site on the Welsh border where pupils whittled wood, made arrows, help rebuild dry stone walls and assisted with site conservation work.  

A highlight of the week was the popular Competition Day at Packwood Haugh School involving a round robin of varied outdoor activities ranging from shooting to orienteering and problem-solving tasks. Fine weather and the positive engagement of our pupils made for a very successful week all round. 

At the same time as this our 4th form were involved in Exploration Week, a programme more calibrated to the activity choices of this year group.  

The five day programme was bookended by Futures (Careers) and Personal Social Development days with the middle three days devoted to Silver Duke of Edinburgh qualifying expeditions, adventurous training trips to Snowdonia and a host of volunteering outreach projects.  

Again, the whole group benefited from fine weather throughout and the reports from staff and pupils alike were unfailingly positive. 

Lt. Col Nick David

Director of Activities 

Watch highlights from the Outdoor and Exploration Week explorations.