Mr Page on BBC Wiltshire Radio

History teacher and Ten Tors manager, Mr Page, was on BBC Wiltshire this morning talking about our Ten Tors teams success last week. Click here to listen to the interview with Ben Prater (he begins at 1:53:30) or read a transcript of the interview below.

Ten Tors Interview on BBC Wiltshire

Ben Prater, Breakfast Show 17 May 2024 (07:53)

Ben Prater, BBC Wiltshire: Now the Army’s Ten Tors Challenge happened last weekend. The epic event seeing teenagers from all over the South West naving their way across Dartmoor covering 35, 35 and 55 miles. Now we heard from some excited students from Sheldon School in Chippenham just before they set out for the big weekend. Let’s have a reminder about what they were feeling at the time.

Student 1: Being in a camp with 2000 young people and all going off for an adventure without any adults. It’s just something you remember.

Student 2: So this is actually my first year doing it and I just wanted to basically challenge myself and see what I was made of.

Interviewer: How are you going to keep morale up?

Student 3: We’re going to make songs on the way about our journey so that we can remember it afterward as well.

Interviewer: Oh I love it. Have you started making any songs now?

Student 3: Yeah, we started making a song with all the check point names. [Sings]

Ben Prater: How did they get on? Are they still singing? Joining us is Humanities Teacher and Ten Tors Manager Richard Page. Good morning, Richard.

Mr Page: Good Morning.

Ben Prater: Three teams entered, are they all back in one piece?

Mr Page: They are all back in one piece. Each team completed the course with all 6 members. All in very, very high spirits. Some were definitely louder than others. The young man you heard singing there was a little bit quieter at the end. Some of the others, the young lady you heard there was very, very vocal as she crossed the finish line.

Ben Prater:: Love it. No emergencies, no drama. Because we heard that can happen in previous iterations.

Mr Page: Not for our team, but it was one of the harder events in recent years. I think a lot of us were enjoying the bumper weather this weekend but for the army it created some serious health concerns. They put in a number of safety measures in place that they don’t usually have out there for events. It was definitely one of the harder events of the last few years which is a credit to the students that they managed to complete as complete teams.

Ben Prater: Once they are out there, no adult support and that’s important isn’t it to show that live can be pretty tough.

Mr Page: Yeah absolutely. No adult support, no sort of modern technology. No GPS, no smartwatches. Good old-fashioned map and compass and relying on each other to get through it. It is an incredible thing to give them that trust and independence at that age and they really sort of relish it and they do show that we can trust our young people with that level of responsibility.

Ben Prater: You must get a lot out of it Richard. Because I imagine now in the teaching world that you’ve got so much pressures there that there are so many reasons not to do things it but you want to do it you its still possible really its inspirational really for anyone thinking about going into teaching you can still put a lot into it.

Mr Page: You can, it is increasingly difficult and we certainly see that with the number of in school staff we have to support us and I wouldn’t be able to run Ten Tors for Sheldon School if it wasn’t for the number of ex-students that come back and give up their time, take holiday from their job and help train the kids.

Ben Prater: What’s the first lesson on the timetable for a fine Friday morning for you then?

Mr Page: I have my Year 12 historians so relatively nice start to the day.

Ben Prater: Which period are they learning about?

Mr Page: They have just finished learning about American history 1865 to 1920 and they are moving to starting some of their course work for their A Level.

Ben Prater: Fabulous Richard, thank you. Richard Page, teacher and Ten tors manager at Chippenham. We just thought we’d check in with them to make sure they are all still singing. The answer is: they are, but some of them quieter than others.