Young Ambassador Workshops - News - Gravesham SSP

Young Ambassador Workshops

Young Ambassador Workshop

Once a term the Leadership Academy hosts four twilight workshop sessions for the Young Bronze and Silver Ambassadors.  These workshops are designed to train and support the Ambassadors to plan and organise cultural, educational and physical themed events and challenges linked to the Kent 20in12 Learning Programme. 

We also invited the Bronze Ambassadors form our local primary schools to attend the recent PLT training day to build on their leadership skills by exploring their role, creating impact plans and composing their very own Olympic & Paralympic song 'Share the Dream'.

The workshops have been a wonderful way of bringing the YAs together to get to know each other better.   Hosting workshops which include both primary and secondary students from ages nine to 19 years has created a wonderful vibrant atmosphere and developed a natural mentoring environment.  The Workshop sessions focused on the YAs first Physical themed challenge called Personal Best.  The Personal Best challenge has been inspired by the recent launch of the adiZone and in collaboration with Gravesham 2012 Officer for the London Games, Jane Packham.  The Workshops were interactive and practical training sessions which provided the YAs with all the resources they would need in order to able to organise, run and record this event within their school.

The Personal Best Challenge involved  students attempting three simple physical activities:

• Shooting Hoops - how many hoops can you shoot in 1min 20secs
• Sit-Ups - how many sit-ups can you do in 20secs
• Press-Ups - how many press-ups can you do in 20secs

Participants add together their scores over the three activities to get their total score.

Bronze Ambassadors attend the PLT Training Day

The PLT day took place at the new adiZone for the morning session and this enabled the YAs to really shine in their new role by getting their teachers to attempt the Personal Best Challenge.  The YAs also introduced their teachers to a new game called Hoop Ball and the Pyramid Competition format in which to host a tournament in school which they had recently learnt at their Workshop session. 

The afternoon session took place at the local Council Offices and whilst the PLTs received their annual PESSYP training the YAs focused their own personal development, focusing on understanding the important qualities of being a role model and creating their YA impact plans.  Team building games and a rather wacky way of demonstrating (The Peanut Butter and Jelly Robot) the importance of communication was used to engage the YAs. 

The afternoon was finished off with a quick challenge to write an Olympic & Paralympic  version to the popular song of Don't Stop Believing  - renamed 'Share the Dream' .  Each group wrote one of two lines and the whole song was put together for a grand perfomance at the end.  With great singing voices and some really inspirational lines all I can say is TOP 40 here we come !!

The workshops and PLT underpin everything the YAs are challenged to do, providing them with the necesary support and opportunities to improve their confidence,  leadership, communication and  organisational skills. 

The YAs are now organising the Personal Best Challenge in their school.  The Bronze Ambassadors have decided to introduce this challenge to the Year 3 or 4, whilst the Silver Ambassadors have decided to work with their Year 7 students.  The YAs have just over a month to find their Top Ten performers from their school who will be invited to compete at the GSSPs podium event taking place at the adiZone.   The event will be hosted over three consecutive evenings in July (13/14/15 July - 4pm-6pm) and will aim to attract over 370 participants from both primary and secondary schools.

As a follow on from this event Jane Packham, Gravesham 2012 Officer for the London Games will be running the Personal Best Challenge for the local community at the Councils annual 'Big Day Out - Active Gravesham' on the 24th July.  The YAs have been invited to take part to publicise their role and encourage the general public to take the Personal Best Challenge.

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