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Year 10 students Charis and Brady write about the Breaking Barriers project they completed this week with London Youth Rowing. Breaking Barriers is 'life skills' mentoring programme that helps motivated rowers to flourish as they transition from school into the wider world. 

This week were we joined by Andy, Head of London Youth Rowing (LYR), and Maddie.

Maddie started as a rower with LYR in North London as a school girl. She then studied English at Oxford University and joined the rowing club.  She was part of the crew that won the first female Varsity boat race in 2015, and again in 2016.  It must have been a really awesome experience to compete in front of thousands of people on the Thames, and in front of millions on live TV!  She was incredibly resilient though. The squad trained twice daily with only one day off a week. She had 5am starts for eight months and fitted her training around her studies. She is now a graduate working in London who volunteers with LYR.  Very resilient.

Today’s project was a time management challenge, building a model of Tower Bridge. We were split up into two groups and had a project manager each from Tideways to guide us through the challenge.  Our task was similar to a “technical challenge” from The Great British Bake Off.  We had a sketched plan to work with and had to ‘buy’ scaffolding products within our budget. We needed to work collaboratively in our teams and received penalties if we went over time or over budget. As our tasks were time managed, we were always under pressure to complete each stage of the construction. 

At the end of the project both teams put their constructions together. We had actually built the dimensions of Tower Bridge! 

What did we learn? Time management is an essential skill.  We also learnt how to prioritise and present a strategy on how to complete projects together and successfully.  And it was a lot of fun!

Charis and Brady, Year 10