This year I started my workshops during the Christmas Holidays. A group of young students aged 7 years to 11 attended an in-house residential course. All they were required to bring was an apron, some wellies and outdoor clothes and a notepad and paper for some recipes and work.
It’s Never Too Young To Start
The menu for the day was Spaghetti Bolognaise and once I had overseen the onion chopping we set to work on creating the bolognaise sauce, this time with mince but vegetarian options are available. Whilst we left the sauce to cook we set to work creating some chocolate brownie’s, always a huge hit ‘cleaning up’ the bowl!
We also made some flapjacks and leaving them all to bake we sat down for 40 minutes to do some work. Topics included ‘Living in a Community’, ‘How to decide what is right or wrong’ and ‘how to communicate better‘. These topics were widely debated/discussed with some amazing insight into their lives.
On to lunch and after the sugar rush from the brownies it was time for the educational walk with much discussion about Bolton Castle and Mary Queen of Scots’ imprisonment and her subsequent escape down the Shawl walk – where she did indeed drop her shawl which helped her captors find her.
Covid-19 and Its Effects on Communication
I was delighted to be asked by Parents and Pupils in equal numbers to deliver a workshop for teenage students during the holidays.
My group shown above explained how much they had missed the interaction of both staff and their contemporaries while learning at home via ‘Zoom’ or ‘Teams’ and missing life at School. They cited how difficult they found communicating outside the family, they wanted to re-engage with the world outside, fellow pupils, friends from home, people in cafes/shops/social gatherings.
They also questioned their ability to start a conversation, or how they’d maintain one, they had become locked in and isolated as did most of us, through the lockdown.
This workshop was a change to cook, eat, chat and seriously discuss social skills; these pupils were looking at ‘work placements’ and how they should conduct themselves at Interview.
Barnard Castle School 6th Form
In January I delivered 3 consecutive workshops for Barnard Castle School 6th form covering Interview Technique, Social Skills, The Art of Conversation, Better Communication, Understanding Body Language and Eating Out Socially.
Afterwards, the students were ready to “dress up” formally and enjoyed a wonderful formal dinner in the beautiful dining room at ‘Barney’.
The Chef cooked a delicious dinner with fabulous canapes to start when the Students handed round huge plates of deep fried prawns, samosas, smoked salmon, goats cheese on rye to name but a few options, this way they managed to mix with their Guests who were either School Governors and their spouses or friends of the School.
Dinner was steak for about 100 people which was a brilliant achievement ( with dietary requirements taken into consideration..) followed by a delicious chocolate pudding, the food at BCS is excellent – a far cry from tapioca pudding was the best thing!
After speeches, thanks and Goodbye’s to my fantastic pupils I went home feeling elated the evening had gone so well. Thanks to Mrs Beadnell, Mrs Pepper and all staff involved.
Communicating and Confidence Skills, Shrewsbury School
At the beginning of March I travelled across to Shrewsbury. Its a school I love visiting and have done for about 13 years delivering workshops for Interview and also to Girls houses where I cover Social Skills. This time my workshops were for Year 10 Day Boys. Post Covid lots of pupils have missed out on mixing with their friends and Peers and some agreed talking to people and initiating a conversation was hard work!
We talked about the mechanisms required to instigate conversation and how to use listening skills, giving them a list of topics to use. We also talked about how we looked to others and discussed Better Body Language, and what our body is saying without uttering a word. Sharing and eating with friends and family, formal situations and how to dress appropriately were all debated.
A great time to have an open discussion whilst thinking about appearance/clean shoes/tidy clothes and understanding why it matters much of the time!
The pupils were delightful and I enjoyed the workshops.