Ninety-five Year 10 boys headed off to Aberdovey for a long weekend of outdoor activities and team-building on the Welsh coast.
After the successful inaugural trip last year, the 2024 cohort again enjoyed activities that required them to learn new skills and, in many cases, to pluck up a little courage. This year, alongside the canoeing, climbing, hiking and shimmying along a rope above water, they could also practise abseiling and making a fire.
A further change from 2023’s dual trips was that the whole group went together, making the long coach journey on the same weekend.
QE Flourish tutor Celia Wallace, who led the boys and a team of eight staff, said: “It was a great weekend: the boys returned tired but exhilarated, with fresh skills learned, a few fears faced and overcome, new friendships forged, and with existing friendships deepened.”
“Through the Flourish programme, we are committed to offering our students a wide range of extra-curricular opportunities,” Dr Wallace added. “Trips such as this develop the boys not only as individuals, but in their capacity for helping one another and working as a team.”
After a journey broken by a 30-minute stop at services, the boys eventually arrived at the Outward Bound centre in Aberdovey (Aberdyfi) in Snowdonia National Park, where they were to sleep in dormitories.
Several of the participants spoke about their experience after it was all over. Krish Deebak and Parth Jain both welcomed being taken out of their ‘comfort zone’ through activities such as rock-climbing and gorge-scrambling. Tanush Madadi said: “The fact that we managed to do such a range of activities in such a short span of time was really an amazing thing.”
It was, said several, fun to try out new activities, with Namish Thakur commenting that “it was also a great way to learn new things about myself, like the fact that I’m somehow pretty good at dragging myself across a rope”.
Many of the boys readily appreciated that the benefits extended well beyond the acquisition of new physical skills. Henry Greene learned “important life lessons”, such as skills in “communication and leadership”; Alex Wang found that the trip “helped build up my confidence and leadership,”; Sriram Muthukumaran said: “It was a great opportunity to get to know others in our year that we may not be so familiar with.”
They also enjoyed the chance to do it all in a picturesque location. Danyal Rahim said: “I think my highlight of the trip would be any time we went to the beach, as it was such a beautiful landscape.”
Aryan Afghan reflected widely on the weekend. He liked the “really nice” food; the clean dormitories with “ample room” and the “great attitude” of the instructors. He thanked Dr Wallace and her team, even endorsing their decision to remove boys’ phones for the weekend. “A great idea – many of us felt a lot happier and more awake without them, and some of us didn’t want to use them on the way back because we learnt from Aberdovey that we, in fact, don’t need to be stuck to a screen all the time to have fun and enjoy ourselves.”
This was, as Suhaan Panjwani said, a time for “making many memories”, or, as Aaryav Sharma commented, summing it all up: “It was incredible.”
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