by Hugo Shephard

This week at Role Models we have been working on finalising the organisation of our first Chinese Residential Camp at Ardingly College in West Sussex. When I was first approached about organising this I got very excited at the prospect of adding a further level of depth to our residential camps. During the two weeks at Ardingly the children will be coached in all four life skills: creativity, resilience, collaboration and leadership, with a bit of language teaching on top, but what makes this experience particularly interesting is the fact that all skills will be developed with children from very different cultural backgrounds, which I believe will make the experience all the richer.

We have recently run leadership courses in Saudi Arabia, during Ramadan, and that was a very interesting experience for our Role Models who were immersed in local culture for the two weeks of the courses, but with the Ardingly camp, it is the children who will be immersed in each other’s cultures and measuring their skills not only with other children from their own schools but also from children from mainland China schools, whose experience of learning is very different.

The idea that life skills will help break down language and cultural barriers and help prepare all these children for a future of international, multicultural collaboration is something that we are extremely proud of at Role Models. We play a part, possibly a small part but a part nonetheless, in forging the leaders of the future for a world of collaboration and peace rather than a world of conflict. Isn’t that just marvellous?

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Role Models help children fly by giving them the skills they need to grow, develop and thrive in a changing world because they believe that children should be skilled for life as well as being schooled in the classroom.

To do this, they offer individual creative childcare to support childrens’ passions. They also provide courses that give children some of the key skills to succeed in the 21st century; leadership, resilience, teamwork and creative problem solving. They approach everything in a way that’s serious fun. Click here to learn more.

Hugo Shephard is the Managing Director of Role Models. The Role Models philosophy is to nurture character in children because they believe that ‘soft skills’ are as important as academic attainment. They focus on the individual strengths of every child and are deeply committed to supporting them through their formative years, ­whether that be through their Creative Childcare, Life Skills Courses or Special Needs Camps.. Before founding Role Models, Hugo worked at Ernst & Young as a Management Consultant in the healthcare sector.

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