C Project - A Global First for Musselburgh Grammar School

About eight months ago Michael Wilson from Catalyst Entrepreneurial Charity, came to me and suggested that we should buy the intellectual property for a New Zealand project called Project K. I had never heard of Project K before but after a bit of research I realised that this was one of the many things that the New Zealanders had been getting right in education for over ten years.

C Project (Catalyst Project) is a replica of Project K that we have purchased the right to use in Scotland. The purchase of the intellectual property did not come cheaply, but we are confident within our business plan that this was money well spent.

C Project is a 12 month programme for young people consisting of three distinct phases:

1. Wilderness Adventure

People take 21 days to break a habit. Students are taken on an adventure away from their families and peer groups and professional outdoors instructors encourage them to face their fears and overcome them.

2. Community Challenge

Students are introduced to their society and asked to put something back.  The students visit the emergency services, sporting and educational facilities provided by their society and shown how to access the facilities available to them. Afterwards they are asked to come up with a project that will benefit their society.

3. Mentoring

At the end of the Wilderness Adventure the students are asked to make several goals that they feel they can achieve. They are paired with mentors whose role is to support the students in reaching their goals. The mentors work with the students in the build up to their next diet of exams.

Mobex East Lothian, a Volunteer Development East Lothian Project (of which I am Chair and technical advisor) were contracted to facilitate the Wilderness Adventure and Community Challenge sections of C Project. East Lothian Council, in particular the Outdoor Education Service, also provided exceptional support to make this project happen.

Due to complications with the funding we were late selecting our students for this year project and only had the last week of term and the first week of the summer holidays to get everything in place. However, I am very proud to say that we managed to achieve this despite a huge amount of hard work.

For the last two weeks of the summer holidays and the first week of the new term eight S5 students at Musselburgh Grammar School have been away completing he Wilderness Phase of the project. I had an opportunity to meet with parents during the evening of the 13^th August (the day I flew back from the States) to review progress. At the parents meeting one of the Mobex team showed photographs and videos of how the group were getting on and there was an opportunity for a letter exchange between students and parents. It should be noted that the students were not at the meeting as one of the aspects of C Project is for students to remain out of contact with their parents and peers for the duration of the wilderness phase. Mobile phones were also not allowed.

This meeting was one of the most powerful things that I have seen in terms of outdoor development and I was almost tearful when I saw how well our young people from Musselburgh we getting on and the obvious bond that had formed between them.

Today, I had the privilege of being invited along to the Wilderness graduation ceremony. Where the C Project students were reunited with their parents after 21 days in the field. The group also put on an outstanding slide show of their achievements for the assembled audience. I will try and post some of the pictures up here during the next week.

I’m sure that readers of this site will agree that this is a very exciting project and time for Musselburgh Grammar School. Now that the Wilderness Phase is over I will be writing up more about C Project during the coming months.