Pupils rise to the challenge
Kids take part in‘hurricane rescue’
First year pupils at Duncanrig Secondary were put on red alert when they took part in the school’s annual Rapid Response Challenge.
As the title suggests, RRC is an enterprising, interdisciplinary learning event that calls on pupils to work briskly in cooperative teams in response to an emergency.
The week-long event involving all curricular areas that culminates in an activity day, is run jointly by the school in association with the Institute of Civil Engineers.
It is based on the notion that a hurricane has hit Honduras in Central America.
Pupils are asked to come to the aid of the stricken country in a range of practical and humanitarian ways.
In working together to find solutions to problems associated with disaster-affected regions, pupils enhance interpersonal skills, deepen their knowledge of many academic and vocational subjects and develop an enriched understanding of the wider world and the world of work.
Although in the past an outdoor event, recent tasks have taken place in the school’s PE area indoors following the popularity of the new model adopted last year to take account of rain.
Suitably fired up by a motivational talk to kickstart the event, the 305 pupils found themselves the following week enmeshed in a wide range of practical and first aid tasks such as building paper towers on which to fly their own flags, translating key words from Spanish into English, and learning how to dress wounds and construct makeshift stretchers on which to ferry the injured to safety across an assault course.
Members of the S6 leadership group ably assisted the youngsters to compete against one another in house teams.
It is based on the notion a hurricane has hit Honduras