At Tring School, we want our students to develop skills and knowledge beyond the realms of their curriculums and how to pass exams. We have a long history of offering students valuable learning opportunities outside the classroom. World Challenge is a company we use to provide educational expeditions in the developing world which teach life skills and expand our students’ minds. At Tring School, we now offer two types of World Challenge packages to our students, the 4 week expeditions and the 2 week Adventures.

In 2011, we launched World Challenge Nicaragua and World Challenge Peru so we have 43 students (now in Years 11 & 12) working hard to fundraise for their trips which leave in the summer of 2013.

The two Peru teams will explore the Andes Mountains and the Amazon basin and the Nicaragua team will be climbing 5 volcanoes, 1 per day as well as exploring the neighbouring Costa Rica. They will shortly be assigned a specific charitable community project but don’t yet know what type of work they will be doing.

In recent years, we’ve offered students expeditions in countries such as Borneo, Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Nicaragua and India. The trips’ objective is to provide a character-building experience involving mental and physical challenges. Students taking part have completed extreme treks through mountains, up volcanoes, across plains or through jungles. They have also undertaken community projects including rebuilding ancient dry-stone walls in an Andean National Park; working at orphanages in the foothills of the Himalayas; and building playgrounds or classrooms for underprivileged kindergartens or schools in places such as Chile, Borneo and Ghana. The project phases always give the students a great sense of achievement and altruism. A good proportion of the money the students raise goes towards these charitable projects and benefit the local communities they visit – so if you see our students in World Challenge T-shirts bag packing, ticket selling for a fundraising event, busking, car washing or boot cleaning, please stop to ask them about their trip and the good cause they’ll be supporting!

At Tring School, we now offer two types of World Challenge packages to our students, the 4 week expeditions and the 2 week Community Projects; both require the students to raise the money themselves by organising their own fundraising events, setting up creative enterprises and, if they can find them, securing part time jobs. Our resourceful students have done all sorts to ensure their place on a World Challenge. We’ve had entrepreneurial students arrange outdoor cinema events, host dinner parties for their parents’ friends, sell afternoon tea at open garden festivals, set up stalls for their home-made cards, cakes, jams and candles... the list is endless.

These are epic adventures involving 2 years of the students’ fundraising in the run up to embarking on a character building, memory making trip of a life time to a far-flung destination. The students decide upon their own tailor-made itineraries so no trip is ever the same but all will include a community project phase, one long trek or two separate treks and some rest and relaxation time.

We launch these expeditions emphasising that they are not holidays – they are a challenging two year projects and the lead up is as important as an experience as the month away itself.

In-country, the students lead themselves only overseen by experienced staff who will only step in if safety is compromised. They build confidence and learn life skills while they manage the team budget, arrange their own food, transport and accommodation and discover the local culture for themselves.

You’ve read about the type of treks and projects these trips involve but rest and relaxation activities are also part of the experience. The students must do their research and budget wisely in order to make the most of their RnR time. In the past, students have found all sorts of things for their teams to do. To name a few, they’ve been sight-seeing, elephant trekking, whale watching, sand boarding, drum making or simply for a slap up feast after weeks eating camp / trek food.

One thing is for sure, the students who take part certainly return home more mature and independent with a realisation that they really shouldn’t take their everyday luxuries and parental support for granted.

For the first time, in 2012, we took a group of Year 9 students to Ghana for two weeks. The progress they made was certainly worth the whole year it took for them to raise the money to pay for their place on the trip. Read Robbie Cogger and James Lovis’ review of their Ghana experience.

It was quite a culture shock for them but the biggest challenges for the students were to work as a team, organise themselves and their days without adult intervention and listen to one another! Students worked at a rural school near the coastal town of Elmina building a new classroom for the children and digging a much-needed long-drop toilet. When not labouring and learning new manual skills, students taught English, maths and geography lessons and organised games for the children to play.

These trips are not all work and no play though. The team had several adventures into the town’s markets to buy provisions and we went further afield to take in some of Ghana’s rich history at a slave fort in Cape Coast and we spent a day and night in the rainforest. You can learn more by looking at the powerpoint of the students photos which was presented by them in a school assembly.

For more information, see the World Challenge website.

The World Challenge ethos
1 - Challenge
Students face a series of mental and physical challenges, taking them outside their comfort zones and teaching them how to overcome adversity, cope with new environments and become more aware of both their strengths and weaknesses.

2 – Participation
Students work as a team, take responsibility, set and meet objectives and learn to become confident decision-makers

3 - Environment
Students learn to become more environmentally aware by exploring diverse landscapes, finding out about other cultures or discovering more about their own within a wider world context. They will gain a broader global perspective and a greater respect for the world.