Potential Plus UK’s BIG Family Weekend takes place in Peterborough on October 20th-21st.  Details of the programme and how to book is available at https://pplusuk.eventhq.co.uk/big-family-weekend-2018

Finding peers who understand you, your interests and your sense of humour can be difficult at the best of times. For children with high learning potential, who may be the only child in their school operating at a particular level of intelligence and intensity, school life can be a frustrating experience.  Potential Plus UK offers a community for families of children/teenagers with high learning potential and the BIG Family Weekend provides fun, challenging and inspiring activities for children and their parents.  Join us October 20th-21st and make some lifelong friendships.

The BIG Family Weekend is aimed at families with children up to the age of 11 years and the Enigma Challenges are aimed at young people aged 12-16 years.   The full programme of children’s activities is available at: https://pplusuk.eventhq.co.uk/files/97/20190925_BFW_Brochure.pdf

Children’s Activities – Up to Age 11

Children’s activities cover a wide range of diverse activities including:

Creative Writing:  Enjoy exploring your identity, and other workshops with author and poet Joshua Seigal https://www.joshuaseigal.co.uk/ who uses poetry to develop literacy skills and inspire confidence and ​creativity in communication. Discover more about the Tiger comes to Tea, or create a minibook with children’s author Katherine Hetzel  (whose own books include: StarMark; Kingstone; Granny Rainbow).

Hands on Creativity:  Get a little slimey, design natural necklaces or forest animals,  hang autumn, craft halloween – there are plenty of creative activities to get your hands on!

Maths: Denary, binary and hexidecimal fun with Dr. Chris

Music:  Take a sonic journey exploring music and the science of sound

Outdoors:  Learn the basic skills of working safely with knives in a Forest School setting

Science and Engineering:   Play with VEX robots; bridge the gap; be prehistoric detectives; investigate a burglary or fingerprints, CSI style; create your own train; get hands-on with voltage; discover density; or decode the weather.

Thinking: Think about thinking, explore common illusions and misinterpretations and the hows and why’s of the media; spend some time on team challenges communicating verbally and non-verbally; or get philosophising with Jason Buckley, the Philosophy Man. 

Enigma Challenges – For ages 12-16

Saturday – Become a Fixpert – Use Creative problem solving in a human-centred approach to design

Sunday – Be Stemtastic and Survive on Mars – What would you need to survive a journey to Mars, spend time on Mars and return home safely?

Skills Builder Framework

The Skills Builder framework aims to build the essential skills which children and young people need for success. Many children are currently missing out on learning the essential “soft” skills of life, such as interpersonal, self-management, creative problem-solving and communication skills. Potential Plus UK is undertaking a pilot with the Skills Builder Partnership to find out whether the framework could also be used at home by parents and all the children’s activities qualify for one or more of the eight key areas of Skills Building:  teamwork, leadership, staying positive, aiming high, listening, presenting, problem-solving, creativity.  The details of each course and the skills builder activities they qualify for are marked up in our events brochure. https://pplusuk.eventhq.co.uk/files/97/2018%20BFW%20Brochure.pdf

Family Activities

As a family you are  invited to try out several activity sessions, from the Science of Sport to discovering equipment from the railways, a poetry recital by Joshua Seigal and plenty of opportunities for some chess challenges.

Full details of the weekend in Peterborough, including timings of the days and prices, are available at https://pplusuk.eventhq.co.uk/big-family-weekend-2018. This weekend  helps to raise funds for Potential Plus UK and its Scholarship Fund. Discounts are available for Family Members, who may also be eligible to apply for the Scholarship Fund to help them to access the BIG Family Weekend.