They made fire with flint and steel when Saint Aidan's pupils took a trip to Borwick Hall

Year 8 pupils at Saint Aidan’s High School took part in an exciting Personal Development Day with a trip to Borwick Hall. In the first part of the report, Flo Maskery explains about building and lighting campfires...
Saint Aidan's High School at Borwick Hall.Saint Aidan's High School at Borwick Hall.
Saint Aidan's High School at Borwick Hall.

Year 8 pupils at Saint Aidan’s High School took part in an exciting Personal Development Day with a trip to Borwick Hall. In the first part of the report, Flo Maskery explains about building and lighting campfires...We recently had the amazing opportunity to spend our Personal Development Day team-building at Borwick Hall! We started the day at school and met on the top yard at 8.20am, the journey took around 45 minutes. We pulled up outside of an old castle like building, with steeples and giant grey walls. There were people stood outside with big puffy coats on. We stepped off the coach and were told to follow the instructors. My instructor was called Tim. Our first activity was camp fire making. Tim gave us a flint and steel and we had to try to make a spark. I managed this and so did most of my group! Then he gave us a piece of cotton wool and we had to try to light that with the flint and steel. It was hard but I did it. The next thing we did was to split in to three groups and made a fire out of dry twigs. My group managed it but after one minute it went out. My group got 50 points.We then juggled as a group. We had five balls and we had to remember who we threw them to so we did it in the same order each time. This activity was fun but very challenging. We got another 50 points.After having lunch it was another game but a challenge. We had string attached to a metal ring and we had to pull the string tight to make sure the ball stayed in the metal ring. There was another team also doing this challenge. We had to swap our string with them so we ended up with their string and ball. Our team didn’t drop it but when we went down a steep flight of stairs – sadly my group did drop it! The final activity we did in this challenge was we had to go through a gap in the wall and then back up the path on the other side. My group didn’t drop it so again we got all 50 points.The last challenge was the hardest by far. We had a steep wooden wall we had to get over – one side with wooden planks and other side smooth. Everyone was standing on the smooth side and we had to make a plan for us all to get to the other side. I volunteered as the person to give the leg ups. Two of my team mates went up first. They helped to pull the others up once it got too high for me. Once everyone was on the other side, I had to run at the wall and they helped pull me up, I eventually made it over. We did it again and all 13 of us managed to get over in two minutes. Overall my day was really good. We may have got muddy and tired but it is definitely something I would want to do again.

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