On Monday 5th December, Year 6 brought their topic of ‘Survival’ to life by spending the day doing an ‘I’m A Year 6, Get Me Out Of Here! Survival Day. The children had previously designed their own shelters in D.T. that had to meet a multi-faceted design brief and they had made small scale models from oasis and natural resources. This had perfectly prepared them for using a range of materials – bamboo, sticks, pallets, crates, tarps, camo netting and more – to create their own group shelters that were waterproof and comfortable enough for their whole group. 

The children spent the first two hours of the day perfecting their shelters, which they did a brilliant job with. Mr Sharrock then came around with buckets of water to do the dreaded waterproof test – with the children inside! Thankfully, most shelters stood up to the test and survived long enough for the children to have their lunch in. There was excellent team work and resourcefulness on show as the children created their shelters. 

For the rest of the morning and afternoon, the children had to complete 7 different Bush Tucker trials to win stars for their team. Red and Yellow houses were paired together and Blue and Green houses were paired together for the day’s challenges. First up was Robot Wars – a communication game where half of the children were blindfolded and half were communicators. The children who were blindfolded were given instructions on the location of beanbags, which they had to throw at other blindfolded robots in order to knock opposing robots out of the game. After two rounds, there was a tie so both teams shared the stars. Next up was orienteering, where the children had to use maps to search the school grounds for codes, with the blue and green team coming in victorious after the 15 minute allowance. A quiz and then the feely trial, where contestants from each team had to put their hands in trays of vile substances to find the stars while blindfolded, saw out the rest of the morning. At the half way point of the day, it was the reds and yellows narrowly in the lead!

After lunch in their shelters, the Year 6’s headed into the classroom for the most dreaded trial of all – the eating trial! 19 different delicacies were prepared, meaning everyone that wanted to take part from each team could do. Contestants went head to head as the plates were uncovered and it was a 1 vs 1 race to eat the food first and show an empty mouth. There was whole octopus (tentacles and all), spicy jalapenos, entire pickled eggs, dried mealworms, dried grasshoppers, whole whitebait (fish with the backbone and eyeballs!), squid tentacle, snails, rollmop herring, chicken livers and more! The children were very brave and very few that stepped forward did not try the food to win a star for their team. The trial ended with both teams perfectly drawn for stars with two events left. The final two trials were teamwork challenges, with the two teams completing each challenge simultaneously and being timed. Bizarrely enough, each team won three of the stars up for grabs after completing one event each the fastest, meaning that both teams ended all of the trials perfectly drawn on 20 stars each – the first draw in I’m A Year 6 history. 

The sweets were shared, the materials and shelters were packed away and everyone went home after a long, busy day of adventures. What a fun-filled day for another successful Survival Day. Well done to everyone involved – excellent team work, excellent shelter designs and great resilience with the trials.