Beyond the classroom
WGS staff commit themselves way beyond the classroom. They know that the best form of learning is a journey travelled together. So teachers and students soak up the experience of a French exchange together, and continue to talk about it (in French) long after the trip is over. On the annual Coast-to Coast run eight year 10 students run through the night with teachers by their sides in relay from St. Bee’s Head to Robin Hood’s Bay. These are life-changing moments, experienced with teachers as mentors and friends.
Adventures in the great outdoors are becoming increasingly popular with young people nowadays, and our structured programme of Outdoor Education is growing all the time. This starts with regular all-age rock-climbing and team-building activities, many of them using our own purpose-made facilities. It develops from a week-long Big Six residential in January and a three-day Year 7 expedition every June, through a variety of weekend activity trips, camps and shorter European expeditions (Spain’s Picos de Europa in 2004 and 2006) to largescale senior World Challenge Expeditions: so far our staff have led these to Ecuador, Malaysia, the Himalayas, Mount Kilimanjaro and Ecuador again (in 2007). Many of our students use these demanding trips as the qualifying expeditions for their Duke of Edinburgh Awards at bronze, silver and gold levels.
All manner of clubs and societies flourish at all ages in the school, and we are sure that the peer-group pressure is for students to become involved, rather than otherwise.
Even those who reckon that they aren’t musicians, actors or sportsmen and women find plenty of opportunities to become involved; in the Student Council; in debating; charitable fund raising; peer support; the Scout Troop; a huge range of other activities - and one that grows and changes dynamically according to our students’ interests and preferences.