Our newly appointed School Council had a full day of training with Mr Reedy and Mr Platt from the Outdoor Education Department. The purpose of the day was to form a team so they are more cohesive in the year they are in position. So a challenging day was set up that would hopefully take them out of their comfort zone. By doing this they are in a position where they draw on each other’s strengths and hopefully instil the importance of leadership and decision making.

Prior to the school council training day, the team was informed that at the end of the outdoor element they would be returning to Elleray to cook a meal for the Senior Management Team (SMT). During and after the meal we will review the day we had.

So the day began at Booths supermarket. The team had produced a menu and a shopping list, and for 45 minutes, they shopped before depositing the food requiring a fridge at Elleray. Mr Reedy and I had other plans for the remaining food! Mr Reedy, during this time, was planting clues around the Coppermines valley in Coniston.

Starting from ‘Miners Row’ in the Coppermines Valley the team was briefed on the day ahead. Essentially they had to find some treasure that ‘Ned’ had hidden. It was crucial this was found before the day was out. Little did the team know that the treasure was the food we had just purchased and was soon to be in a chest 6m down a pit in ‘Red Dell’.

Navigating with a map and GPS the team had to get from clue to clue until the pit was found. They were remotely supervised by Mr Reedy and I, though we made no physical contact until they arrived at ‘the pit’.

It was a really successful day, the team did very well and rescued the treasure chest, but there was much learning along the way which came out in the review later in the day.

The meal was excellent and I would like to thank Jane KP for her support in this process – plus for persuading the team that deep-fried Oreos would be a bad idea to give SMT – phew 😊.

On Thursday morning Mr Reedy and I met them again to help them with a few ideas for the year ahead. They are a lovely team and we wish them all the best.