At the start of this term, 75 year twelve students attended a three day residential at the University of Lancaster. During their stay, students lived in Halls of residence; having their own en suite bedrooms, staffed by NLA staff members. Students experienced, first hand, life as a campus university student, behaving in an enthusiastic manner with interest and respect. Students were served breakfast, lunch and an evening meal and were always tidy, polite, courteous to staff and other students, setting a shining example of the calibre of students in attendance at the NLA sixth form.
Day time activities included a variety of academic tasters and team building activities. All students were seen to be co-operating fully during all sessions, particularly during team building sessions where the focus was to introduce our external cohort to our internal cohort. The team building sessions were very successful and reports flooded in from students who themselves who were impressed by how well they were bonding with staff and students that they had only recently met.
On Thursday evening students had the choice of taking part in sports or watching a film screened in one the university’s lecture theatres, this was followed by a quiz in which students competed against each other and against a team of staff. A team students beat the NLA staff!!!
On Friday evening, to most the highlight of the trip, Lancaster arranged a disco at a non-alcoholic bar. Again, student behaviour was exceptional and again all of the staff and students could be seen to be developing relationships and building confidence. Before departing on Saturday morning, the students delivered the culmination of their academic experiences in a group presentation to all the staff and ambassadors from Lancaster, all NLA staff and students. Student commitment, creativity and humour was evident in each presentation and certificates were given to all of those who participated and an award given to the best team.
Sophie Freeman, John Davies; this year’s Head Girl and Head Boy were accompanied by last year’s Head Girl, Charlie Mullin. All three presented gifts of thanks to Gail Neville, the trip organiser, and set the standard for student commitment and attitude.
Lancaster provided a UCAS/Finance presentation for our students. The input from our cohort was very impressive and Gail later reported that, in all of the years that she has been running residential visits, she had never experienced such an enthusiastic attentive audience with such valid and considered questions.
Students took a great deal of information in during the residential and experienced student life for the first time. They approached the trip with maturity and interest, this was noted by NLA staff and Lancaster staff alike and set an example of student behaviour of which our academy can be proud.
