Each year, around 90 children begin their time at Epsom as Year 9 pupils. They join the year group alongside an equal number of boys and girls who move up from our Lower School. All Year 9 pupils join one of our 13 houses and embark on their time in the Senior School together.
To help these pupils make new friends, and form strong bonds, we hold a series of events – starting with the familiarisation day in Year 8, leading onto Choral Comp and sporting fixtures, and culminating in an entire day of team-building tasks, challenges and competitions.
The teambuilding day is run by Team Thinking, the organisation that also leads our Prefect Training each June, and took place this week under particularly wet, challenging and character-developing conditions. Pupils completed a rotation of indoor and outdoor activities designed to challenge them, whilst working in mixed teams.
In addition to various outdoor tasks, pupils built towers, worked collaboratively on photography projects and engineered mechanisms to stop eggs from smashing when dropped from a height. The instructors have been impressed with the pupils’ determination and good-humour throughout.