Be Curious Weekend at Beaumanor Hall, Leicestershire on April 29th and 30th 2023 was once again blessed with some amazing weather so that 41 families could have full enjoyment from their weekend of activities there, unimpeded by the inconvenience of the showers and the cold that seem to have dominated so far this year!
With 14 activities to choose from, everyone had their favourites. Land Buggies and Bridge Building are always popular with teams cooperating to build the strongest or the fastest constructions. Although we had lots of new families join us this year, we know that a number are on their third visit and hope to return again, so we are working hard to ensure that we can offer a varying programme each year. This year families enjoyed some Viking themed activities, new nature-based trails and a murder mystery, but the biggest hit seemed to be Cellars – a giant game of hide and seek in the basement of the Victorian manor house!
As well as a host of varied activities that allow children (and parents!) to exercise and improve their essential skills (see below), one of the things our families love about Be Curious are the ample opportunities to gather informally and chat. New friendships were forged and future meet-ups arranged. Stories were shared and advice and tips on living with a child with high learning potential were given. Break times were buzzing with discussion, as well as play and laughter.
We are grateful to all of those families who provided feedback about the event during the weekend and afterwards in our event survey. We are pleased to share some of those findings with you here.
We’re glad that so many of our families enjoyed the weekend.
As well as offering families a chance to meet others with similar experiences and socialise, Be Curious Weekend focusses on the development of 8 essential skills – Listening, Speaking, Creativity, Problem Solving, Aiming High, Staying Positive, Leadership and Teamwork. In our survey, families told us that there were ample opportunities to demonstrate all of these, as well as providing feedback as to where we can focus more on them in the future. But Be Curious isn’t the only place ripe with chances to develop those skills. Have you investigated the multitude of resources Skills Builder www.skillsbuilder.org offer on their website? Do you need a helping-hand understanding what each of the skills involve and using resources on the Potential Plus UK to develop them? Visit our blog What is Skills Builder to find out more.
About the Author: Olivia Smith is Potential Plus UK’s Events Coordinator and Skills Builder Lead, after completing a Masters’ degree in Engineering, Olivia has spent all of her working life in education, much of it as a maths teacher. She trained with Potential Plus UK to carry out educational assessments and to deliver workshops for teachers and parents before taking on the role of Events Coordinator in 2018. Olivia has two children with high learning potential.
