02 Feb Our Development Qualities – Dungeon
At Robinwood we believe the development of children is essential, and we do everything we can to give each visiting child the chance to develop in different ways.
We use our sessions as a catalyst for such development. Each child has the chance to learn and grow particular life skills and qualities.
We attach six of these qualities to each activity. We thought long and hard about which qualities belong to each session, looking in detail at what kind of development each activity focuses on. We also asked our instructor team for feedback and along with their input, we reached a final decision.
In order to explain how we use these qualities in an activity setting, let’s dive into one of our problem solving sessions, the Dungeon – without giving away too many secrets of course. The six qualities we use as a focus in Dungeon are problem solving, confidence, cooperation, support, listening and communication. During a group’s journey through our Dungeon they will solve a series of problems and clues with the aim of escaping on time. The problems range between physical and mental and all require lots of different input from the children. Sometimes they’re split into two smaller teams and other problems are solved all together.
Once the team has escaped the Dungeon their instructor will review the session with them. These reviews help to guide the children to discuss what they have achieved and how they used certain skills, sometimes, without them even realising. Our review areas outside each activity vary in design, but all focus on the attached qualities. At the Dobroyd Dungeon review area, children can physically move the blocks and sliders to represent how they think the team performed in certain areas.
The qualities system is also used as a tool for visiting staff. When completing their online information about the children attending from their school there is an option to select certain qualities for individual children, or a whole group. These will be seen by each Group Leader and all Robinwood staff attached to that school during the visit. We use these as a development tool during a three day course, and they give our Group Leaders a chance to work alongside school staff in the development of children at Robinwood.