Teamwork skills for beyond the classroom

Education:
Alison Sefton, Norwich High School for Girls

The extracurricular programme at Norwich High School for Girls sees students push themselves outside their comfort zones and into different settings, where they mix with students from different year groups while engaged in a broad range of activities.

They make friends with similar interests from across the school community, building both their confidence and social skills. Teamwork is at the heart of all these interactions. Being an effective club member or leader and learning to work with others improves communication skills and will serve our students well for the future.

Opportunities

A core part of our school ethos is that school is about more than just examination results, so it is important to offer up a range of opportunities for students to explore, in areas they might not otherwise have thought of. The smallest spark of interest can result in a conversation about a future career pathway or lifelong hobby. So I want to encourage students to get involved in as many of the opportunities available to them as possible.

Here’s a spotlight on some of our most popular clubs in the Senior School.

Changemakers: Changemakers is our student diversity and inclusion group, which helps organise events throughout the year, raising awareness of issues and celebrations to make sure everyone is included and represented.

“I go to Changemakers Club as it is a platform where I can be passionate about diversity and inclusion. There we have great fun planning and carrying out assemblies, religious celebrations, awareness programmes etc. We discuss things that are important to us and try to make every student feel represented. It’s the best club ever.” Says Rashmi, a Year 13 student and Changemakers member.

Orchestra: Senior Orchestra is one of a huge variety of musical clubs running every week across the entire school. From Ceilidh bands to rock bands, there is something to suit every musician.

Students involved in the Senior Orchestra benefit from the opportunity to perform in front of audiences at different events throughout the year, including our prestigious annual Choral Concert at the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Norwich every March.

Football Club: Our Director of Sixth Form, Mrs Packer, runs a Football Club which meets on Tuesday lunchtimes. She says it’s been brilliant to see how much the players have improved in just one term.

Kayaking Club: We partner with Norwich Canoe Club to offer kayaking sessions to students in Years 7 and 8. Students learn lots of paddle skills, often through playing games like kayak polo, capsize races, standing-up challenges, and the sinking game – a perennial favourite in which the paddlers must sink their boats but not capsize. They learn good forward paddling techniques, draw strokes to move sideways, turning strokes, and they get the chance to learn to roll too.