Residential Weeks- Building Bonds Beyond Classrooms

The Beauty of Residential Weeks

School Beyond Limitations’ Secondary School Students undertake three residential weeks per year. These weeks allow our students and facilitators to dive deeper into an experiential experience on site in many different ways.

Before going on such a trip everybody is extremely excited, maybe also somehow worried as nobody knows exactly beforehand how things would work out in the end. All stakeholders need to work together in order to make such a trip a success: Parents need to trust the school and facilitators need to be ready to take on responsibility that goes beyond the daily school routine as they have to be available and alert 24/24 hours; the school’s administration needs to be aware of all possible implications and has to make decisions accordingly; last but not least the students need to be prepared to leave their protected setting and to adhere to sensible agreements of conduct that are necessary in order to set the foundation for reciprocal respect and understanding and for meaningful learning experiences.

Each time, when students and facilitators are back, they are full of good memories, full of new experiences and – first of all – they all develop an even stronger feeling of belonging. It is so good to see how much students and facilitators bond with one another; the chance to get to know each other in a different context, away from the online setting and home, increases their self-awareness and their understanding for their peers’ individual personalities.

For some of them it is always their first experience away from home, for others their first time that they meet with new friends and new facilitators in yet another new place in Europe.

SBL’s residential weeks demonstrate their specific purpose:

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• It is about living up to all aspects of the SBL values, mission, blueprint and agreements by opening up towards one another and towards new experiences. Sharing the bedroom with peers, for example, puts the students in a new situation. They have the opportunity to adjust to a unique reality: sharing every moment of their day with another person;
• It is about having fun and enjoying a special learning context with one’s peers, facilitators and external workshop leaders;
• It is about putting knowledge into practice as SBL’s residential weeks give students the opportunity of meaningful first-hand learning about topics that are relevant for the specific destination;
• It is about being exposed to situations and enriching learning activities that are different from activities of their daily school life.

The list could go on and on.

It is certainly heart-warming when parents write the following comment: ‘We are so grateful for what you are doing. Our daughter flourished in all ways and can’t wait to participate in the next residential week. We are aware of how much effort you put into the organisation and delivery of these weeks. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!’

We will continue to organise these amazing and sometimes life changing experiences. In order to make it more relevant we invite our students, parents and facilitators to give feedback and add ideas as it is our main purpose to show our students and ourselves how rich each new learning experience can be.

If you also wish for your child to have a holistic, international school education where every child is seen and encouraged in their uniqueness, and if you’d love your child to be prepared for a meaningful and fulfilled future please don’t hesitate to contact us.