Year 11: Summer Expo 06
Monday 3rd July to Saturday 8th July
78 year 11 students from across the East Midlands attended this Summer School which took place over five nights. Here is our account of what happened!
Monday 3rd July
All the Gurus started at 12pm, setting up the flats and making everything ready for the students. Some of the Gurus were already on the buses picking up people from all over the Region, having left at 8am in the morning! All the students arrived around 4pm - a lot were nervous, anxious - and hungry! We had a buffet to welcome them though so people soon got chatting to each other with an sandwich in one hand and welcome pack in the other! Once everyone was here and had been fed, we all introduced ourselves and welcomed the students. After this, students got to go to their flats and unpack - ready for the week ahead!
At 7pm we all had a BBQ at the students union, followed by some team building activities. Students had to get into one large circle with the Gurus (you can imagine how large the circle was with 100 people!) then they all had to get in order of first name, then height and finally birthdays! We also had other activities through the evening, such as our favourite 'Splat' with the drama students, 'Beetle Biscuit' (involving icing, jelly beans, smarties and.a digestive biscuit!) and sports games such as badminton. Once we had worn the students out as much as possible, everyone had to go back to their flats to work on their flat team names and flat team posters!
Tuesday 4th July
After breakfast in the flats, all the students came to our large lecture theatre to find out a bit more about further and higher education. To wake them all up, we did a HE quiz - with lollies as prizes! After this students split into groups to spend the rest of the day doing 'tasters' in the five areas available for project work the rest of the week. These were Business (marketing and films), Engineering, Psychology, Law (terrorism) and Performance Studies. At the end of the day, the students finished their formal sessions for the day with a session on Student Finance at university, finishing with a budgeting game called 'Play Your Cash Right'. Students had to pretend they were a first year student and had to see how much money they had left at the end of term, making choices and having unlucky surprises along the way!
After finishing a long day of programmed activity, students had a chance to 'chill-out' in the union playing pool, chatting, playing giant jenga or playing basketball in the sports hall with Guru's Dave and Jane! All was well until a thunder storm knocked out all the power across the campus, meaning that we nearly didn't get dinner, but luckily this was prepared just before the power went out, however it meant that the last group to eat did get slightly colder chips than the others!
Once the power came back on (thank goodness!) the rest of the evening was brilliant with a West African drumming workshop! Students all had the chance to take part, learning different rhythms and trying out different drums such as djembe, sabar and tama drums. After an evening of practicing, all 100 staff and students using either drums, percussion, clapping hands or stamping feet all played together using different rhythms but in time with each other. It was a brilliant sound and a great way to end the first day, all working together as a team.
Wednesday 5th July
Today was the first day of project work! Having done their subject tasters yesterday, students had to choose which project they wanted to do. Sarah and I went to all the groups taking pictures and seeing what everyone was getting up to! After a lunch sitting out in the sun, students continued with their project work. The Psychology group were seen around campus questioning people on what they found attractive in the opposite sex; the Law group were learning about different terrorist groups around the world; the Business groups were learning about marketing strategies and the promotion of films; the Performance Studies group were seen undertaking drama activities and the Engineering group were riding bikes around Avenue Campus! After project work, all students had to spend time in the university library researching for their presentations, using either the internet or other library resources.
After some chill out time and dinner of fish and chips, we all headed off campus to Laser Zone! All those who wanted to watch the world cup semi-final were in the first group with me and we had a great time running around in the dark 'zapping' each other (and it helped that the Guru's team won!). The rest of the evening we spent either watching the footie, or playing giant connect four and jenga (whilst eating popcorn!). After a tiring night of running around, we were all ready for our beds! Zzzzzzz...
Thursday 6th July
Today was our 'fun' day at an outdoor activity centre! Unfortunately it was also a day of thunderstorms and rain! After a wet start, we all arrived at the outdoor pursuits centre to see a flooding riverbank! Nevertheless, we continued with our activities in our waterproof clothes and all students got to try two things from raft building, quad biking, canoeing, boating, abseiling, archery or climbing. I was with the raft building group in the morning - we all thought this was a dry option, until the river rose more than expected and we ended up building a raft knee deep in river water! By lunchtime, the sun was coming out and everyone dried off - apart from the canoeing group who decided to have a water fight later that day! Once we got back and everyone had showered and dried off, we all had a treat in store - pizza night! All students had been able to choose the pizza they wanted, and they were all devoured pretty quickly!
The evening continued with a relaxed vibe with the Summer School quiz night! I was the Quiz Master, Sarah was the Challenge Master and we had Judge Jennie with Lindsay and Vikki the adjudicators! All the flats had to work together to create questions for the quiz on different areas. We mixed the quiz questions with 'challenges' including making a balloon animal and using a straw to suck jelly beans from one bowl into another!
Another great day, where everyone had a chance to 'relax' and forget about project work and focus on making new friends and having fun!
Friday 7th July
This was the final day of project work. The students were all pretty tired today, after a week of late nights and lots of activity, but they worked well in their project work finalising their group presentations. As they had worked so well in the day, we gave everyone a longer break than planned and we had some games of rounders and football going on the field.
After the break, all students had to go back to their flats to 'Get Creative' for the Football Party at the union. Each flat had to bring a 'home made' football and/or Country themed party prop! We had a range of different props, such as a 'Leaning Tower of Pizza' for Italy, a 'Mycawka' car for the Ukraine, a bottle of Vodka for Russia and a mini football stadium, which won first prize! (Well done Fran's flat!). The party was great with a outdoor human-table-football game, and a 'fast goal' goal to some great tunes upstairs on the dance floor! After the party, everyone was in high spirits and we had a lot of fun Diary Room entries!
Saturday 8th July
After a lot of high spirits and late nights for students last night, there was a lot of tired looking people in the morning! Everyone had to pack up their flats and put all their bags in the Students Union ready to go home later in the day. The morning was spent in project groups, practicing presentations. After lunch, there were a lot of nervous students worried about their presentations - but they needn't have. The presentations were great, and a fantastic representation of all the hard work that had gone into them. We had a mixture of PowerPoint presentations, posters and also a performance from the Performance Studies group - they were all great! After a short break, all the students were in for a surprise. All the Gurus had bought each student a present each to remind them of their stay on campus. We had light sabres for Dave's group, hand painted plates for George's group and many other presents all hand picked by the Guru's for every single student. After the presents, it was time for the Summer School Graduation. Each student was presented with a Summer School certificate by a university employee wearing a traditional 'mortar board' hat and gown (as you would in a university graduation ceremony). This was a great ending to what had been an absolutely fantastic week. All the students had been great fun, and everyone had really enjoyed themselves.
