Surviving English, Maths and Higher Education!

Year 11 students from Airedale academy visited Herd Farm Activity Centre this month, enjoying an English and Maths-based residential aimed at raising confidence with revision and building life skills to support living away from home in Higher Education.

Students enjoyed four different team building activities outside as well as two days of English and Maths revision. Students were entirely responsible for managing their own rooms, serving meals and cleaning up. After a packed couple of days, the second evening ended with an activity around what they would need to go on to Higher Education including moving away, funding and living alone.

At the beginning of the trip, most students stated that they “didn’t like talking to new people” and “didn’t like leaving the area that they live in”.  With the residential being around twenty miles away from their community (a similar distance to our nearest Higher Education facility), the experience was a big challenge and change for many of the students. Less confident students had their eyes opened to the possibility of attending university and stated that it helped them to think about attending university in the future.

One student also commented that she felt she would enjoy attending university after experiencing “living” without their parents for two days, and all students felt that the focus on revision was good because they were in a new but comfortable environment, and said that it had helped to build their confidence with revision.