Plympton teachers set themselves a resilience challenge

Juggling, running a marathon, unicycling and competing in the world’s biggest obstacle course, are just some of the challenges teachers and staff at a Plympton school have set themselves this year,

The adventurous group from Ridgeway School want to inspire their students to be resilient and so have decided to lead from the front.

The idea for the resilience challenge started after the success of PiXL Edge. It is a framework for schools to develop in students the personal attributes essential for employability and life. The national scheme is supported by some large companies, including the CBI and Sky sports.

The scheme focuses on five key life attributes: leadership, organisation, initiative, resilience and communication. Students need to complete a series of activities within the programme for each of the key attributes and can qualify at three levels: apprentice, graduate and master.
“The scheme has been taken up with enthusiasm, with large numbers of students taking part in our wide variety extra-curricular activities in order to complete the programme, “ said Ian Hartley, Head of Personal Development and Religious Studies. “ We already have our first apprentices and are looking to build on this early success.

“Students tended to find the attributes of leadership, organisation and communication easy to understand and become involved in. However this was not always the case with resilience and this was something that we had noticed across the school in terms of their daily lives and pushing themselves further in their learning, whether it was in Maths, Science or PE lessons. This is when I realised that we needed to get the whole school involved, to work together on a resilience challenge.”

So all members of staff were asked if they had either set themselves a challenge for the year, or if they would be willing to do so. A wide range of responses came flooding in from members of the Senior Leadership Team; Heads of Academic Progress, the teaching staff and support staff. These were both eye-opening and inspiring and included learning new skills such as languages and playing musical instruments to marathon running and obstacle racing.

Two Heads of Academic Progress (HOAP) took the lead, with Jo Pengelly (HOAP Year 7 and Associate SLT) demonstrating her lack of juggling skills to her year group in assembly and setting herself the challenge of successfully juggling in an assembly before July. She then asked each and every student in her year group to set themselves a ‘resilience challenge’ which will be part of PIXL Edge and part of a specific year group display.

Jim Strachan (HOAP for Year 8 and 9) has continued the circus theme with a unicycle and after a spectacular fall during his first attempt, will hopefully ride the length of the hall in an assembly before the end of the year.

Taking part in the world’s biggest obstacle course, the Rat race Dirty Weekend, are Head of Care & Services, Martin Tinkler, Head of Personal Development, Ian Hartley and Assistant Head, Craig Follett. The three teachers have competed in several challenges before but never an obstacle course that covers 20 miles with 200 obstacles including the world’s highest haybale tower and the world’s longest monkey bars.

Meanwhile, Danni Johns, the Health and Social Care teacher, is preparing to run the Redruth Marathon and is writing a blog of her training for the school website.

So that students can track the progress of the staff challenges, whether it is training for the Rat Race Dirty Weekend or successfully throwing a pot on a wheel or playing the guitar, a display has been put up in the main corridor through the school. Each member of staff has their own ‘challenge card’ which is then moved up as they work towards their goal.

“Students are regularly seen looking at the display and questioning staff on their efforts,” said Ian Hartley. “There is now a much greater understanding of resilience across the school and students are accepting the fact that it is not always easy to succeed in a task. Students are more confident to push themselves in what they previously considered a ‘too challenging’ task and there is a marked increase in resilience activities being chosen and completed by students as part of the PiXL Edge programme.”

Sir John Rowling, Director, Partners in Excellence PiXL said, “I have long believed that given the right lead by teachers, students can do almost anything! It is great to hear that Ridgeway school is taking the development of Character so seriously and enjoying themselves at the same time. This is a national initiative to reach and inspire one million young people and Ridgeway is one of those schools leading the way.”

Principal of Ridgeway School, Lisa Boorman said, “This is a great example of teachers and staff leading the way for our students. Everyone involved will benefit from this and I wish everyone taking part good luck in their endeavour.”