Yesterday morning in crew students were split into two groups. We carried out an activity based on a staff crew session which Mr Walker and Miss O’Grady had led the previous week.

Each group had to race to grab post-it notes from the centre of the hall. Each post-it had a piece of sports equipments. Students were then challenged to develop a game using that equipment using the following criteria:

• The game must involve all players
• The game must not be a replica of an existing game (although modified is OK)
• The game must have a (preferably silly) name.

Each group nominated a chair to facilitate discussion.

The chairs found it tough to get the groups working collaboratively and creatively. So we circled up and talked about how this type of activity was analogous to what many job interviews look like, where applicants are placed in groups and asked to complete a task, whilst being observed all of the time.

Students were asked to give a fist to five on their contribution and enthusiasm and those that needed to had the integrity to admit that they perhaps had not been helping their team as best they could. We also talked about the nature of creativity and how taking existing ideas or games and changing them is an appropriate ay of being creative. All creative ideas are built on knowledge and ideas that have come before.

The photos above are the outcome of this mid-task debrief. Two teams circled up with chairs leading the discussion. A lot more progress was made from this point on. We are going to play the games next week with some input from each team, especially the chairs on how it went this week and what can be done better.

Thanks to Mr Walker and Miss O’Grady for their staff crew session which helped us to plan this one. And also thanks to Anthony and Rory for stepping up to be chairs. Looking forward to playing the games next week – one of which looks as if it is set to involve cones for hats!