Maybe if Hugh’s ladies had been meeting Prince of Wales, the heir-apparent to the Throne, they would have arrived 15 mins early rather than late. In all likelihood, they would probably have arrived hours earlier

Read on…
We have spent a great deal of time determining the optimum size for groups. In terms of GL (Group Leader) ratio to pupils and this is driven by two principal considerations in this order:
1. Safety
2. Meeting the objectives of the specific activity
We offer a broad range of participative activities, ranging from kayaking to bouldering, for the purposes of this discussion I will limit our conclusions to our fell walking pursuits.
The first remit for group’s safety, is that everyone in the group is equally aware and understands the risks, and secondly, that everyone in the group complies with the instructions from the leader/instructor.
Across the age range we work with, 11-18 years, an interesting observation soon became apparent, the younger the pupils then the larger the group could be in terms of them all following instructions, the older the group, the more they understood the risks, yet these two findings were inversely proportional. So from the outset it was balancing these factors as we often have groups with mixed ages.
Both of these factors are, to a great deal, dependent upon the level of expectancy, for what they are going to undertake, and the level of enthusiasm to participate.
These are the conclusions of our work and how we have put them into practice. We explain the following to all students, then we tell them it again and we summarise by telling them again In all seriousness, they are given details prior to coming to the centre by their teacher/carer, when they arrive during the welcome ceremony and then by the GLs when they come to choose their activities.
All students have the ability to either choose to participate or decline any activity whatsoever, with the clear provision that once an activity has been selected, they cannot then swap to another, however they can drop out, for whatever reason, either before or during the activity, if safe to do so, but cannot then join another activity simultaneously running.
Each GL is introduced to the specific group by a colleague, who talks about the GL and why they are the best person to lead the group.
The GL then assigns different responsibilities to individual group members, from aspects of safety to helping navigate.
This format works well for us, sometimes we get what we call a ‘rogue group’, but usually when we post analyse the group, we find that we could have negated any problems that arose, if we had split and mixed the individuals with other groups doing the same activity.