On Monday the 14th of October many pupils from Upper Secondary followed in their younger colleagues footsteps and had their own Integration trip with their peers. Their time followed a very similar format.
Although each year the main goal of the trip is for our pupils to get to know each other and form strong working relationships, we also try to spotlight a core value over the length of the trip; the theme of this year’s trip was communication.
We started off the trip by doing a survival camp at the base of Babia Góra. Each team was given certain tasks and the groups had to communicate with each other in order to complete these tasks as quickly and efficiently as possible. These tasks included capturing the flag and building a fire using only flint. In the evening of day 1 we had our egg-drop competition. The main idea of the activity was for students to formulate a plan for how they are going to build a structure out of straws to protect an egg being dropped from the first and then second story balcony. The tricky part here was that each team had to break up into two teams and build two separate parts of the structure communicating what it would look like using only words. Ultimately, when each part of the structure was built, each team then had only 2 minutes to put the pieces together and then test out the effectiveness of the structures. Not all eggs survived, but two teams managed to build structures that protected their egg even when dropped from the second story balcony!
On the second day we hiked the tallest mountain in the Beskids, Babia Góra. Our guide discussed the nuances of the park as we ascended uphill towards our windswept goal. When we reached the top we had a view into the beautiful countryside of both Poland and Slovakia. For our dinner we cooked sausages over the bonfire and sang songs to the tune of Mr. Benek’s guitar music.
On the final day our group visited the Fiat factory where we got to see how a car is produced from the beginning to the end. It was amazing to see how automated the whole process is and how quickly the assembly car workers could build one car.
All in all the trip went according to plan and we were blessed with extraordinary fall weather. As we say in Polish ‘Polska Złota Jesień!’ (Golden Polish Autumn).
Thank you to all the pupils who participated and all the staff who made these trips a huge success.
More photos can be found in the Gallery.