Form 1 Leadership Development
Written by Head Girl, Imogen O and Head Boy, Xander L
On Wednesday 2nd and Thursday 3rd September, the new Form 1 took part in leadership activities. We aimed to show the three Cs: courtesy, courage and creativity, and explored new values, such as the values of Loretto School: KILT; kindness, integrity, loyalty and tenacity.
At the dinner on Wednesday evening, two OBs from Loretto, Henry Stanley, the head boy, and Eliza Jack, a prefect, came to talk about leadership in Form 1 at Belhaven. They asked us what qualities a good leader should have and how they should interact with others.
On the Thursday, Form 1 had four challenges set up for them to tackle. We gathered into our patrols, which divided the groups, and started the first challenge. For us, Wolves, this was a speaking exercise, and you would randomly choose a topic and then speak about it for about 1 or 2 minutes. Some of the topics were difficult to describe, especially as one only had a few minutes to think about them.
The second activity was about teamwork. There was a red square marked out with rope, and you couldn’t step or lean into it. A metal cup was placed in the middle of the square and the aim was to get two golf balls into it using a bucket, some rope and sticks.
The third challenge was a mountain-related one. Half of our patrol was stuck on the other side of a gushing river with no food to eat. We used rope, a pulley, a kettle to carry the food in and communication as our materials to do the task. Rope was tied around the trunk of a tree nearby to be the kind of ‘zipline’ the kettle could slide along. Part of the rope was thrown across the river, and the other part of the patrol could tie it. The kettle was eventually pulled to the other side with rope attached to it.
The fourth and final challenge was putting up a tent blindfolded, with only one person able to see. That’s when the chaos started because no one knew where anything was! We managed to get the tent up and finish within about 10 minutes, but with a 2-minute time penalty as well.
Everyone achieved these activities with great leadership, responsibility and respect. Thank you to all the staff who helped set it up.
