Social Work students prove their team working skills are ship-shape with raft building exercise

University of Northampton students got the chance to show how ship shape their team working skills were during a recent trip to a local water sports centre.

Third year Social Work students visited the Nene White Water Centre for a task-based day of learning and fun as they worked together to design, build and finally race a hand-made raft.

The activity finished with a post-event workshop that allowed them to reflect on their role within a team and why team work is so critical in Social Work.

Questions they worked through included how the raft building exercise will help them responding to anxiety provoking situation, how it will prepare them for a forthcoming placement and what the event as a whole told them about their own personality.

Robin Sturman-Coombs, Social Work lecturer at University of Northampton, was the lead on the event. He said: “Social Work is very much about making decisions as part of multi-disciplinary teams, so we wanted to give our students something slightly different to get their thinking out of the lecture theatre and into the outside world.

“Our Social Work Students embraced this activity and the feedback on the day has been outstanding. The quality of the discussion in the afternoon was second to none, with our students identifying the importance of working collectively together to improve the end result.”

Student Emma Leahy seconded Robin’s thoughts saying that the session was: “The day made us all feel like a team, it was a great experience.”

Find out more about the University of Northampton’s Social Work course.