It was recently our pleasure to welcome the students and teachers from Seoul Foreign School for their first time with VSP.
There were a lot of adventure activities included in the program, as well as some team building activities. There were two main team building activities: Low Ropes and Climbing Wall. However, the activity that I would like to talk about is Climbing Wall as we have just finished renovating our wall with new routes and a lot more colour!
Seoul Foreign School students were the first group to try the brand new routes. There are three different levels of difficulty and the students were given the opportunity to try all of them. There are always at least two qualified staff to take care of the students at the climbing wall, meaning that whilst most of the students started to warm up by climbing the easy wall first, some of them started from the medium wall as well.
The students took it in turns to be a climber and belayer. They learnt how to belay their friends, including the command words, which are important in maintaining safety. As such, working as a team is essential for the climbing wall activity. 3Cs – communication, cooperation and consideration – are important elements and recommended for use when working in a team like this.
The students enjoyed challenging themselves. One of the students commented that she had never tried climbing and did not know how the system works but this experience gave her the opportunity to enjoy the climbing with her friends.
At the end of the activity, I could see the improvement of the students. They worked better in a team and they communicated to each other more. Some of them had argued at the beginning but they listened to their friends and adjusted their attitudes to be able to work together successfully.