A resilience challenge took place last half term for schools and colleges across the Island organised by Ed-Wise. Students were given a hypothetical emergency scenario and had to put relief plans in place and present them.

IWEF students performed fantastically in this challenge with The Island VI Form team being crowned the overall winners and Medina College students being presented with the award for the most innovative response.

Students showed great career capital skills including: public speaking; teamwork; creative thinking; leadership and creative problem solving.

“During the Digital Twin Resilience Challenge our team of six, along with many other Island schools, were given a fake scenario (in which an unexploded bomb was unearthed during construction near the car park adjacent to the Council building) and tasked with creating a presentation detailing our evacuation plan and response, focused on infrastructure. Our favourite plan we came up with was to suggest sending children to the local soft play center, JR Zone, providing a safe and engaging environment during the crisis. This imaginative strategy not only prioritised the safety of our youngest community members but also showcased our team’s ability to think creatively under pressure and in an ever changing situation. Despite technical difficulties we won ‘best overall course of action’, making the difficulties and hard work worth it. Overall, we most enjoyed working together as a team and completing the wide variety of different tasks and responses needed, allowing us to get to know each other and complete tasks most suited to our individual skills. We knew this hard work paid off when we managed to finish our presentation with just four seconds left of the 15 minute time limit! We have learnt many skills from this experience, such as working well under pressure and communicating effectively with one-another, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.”
– Amelie and Rachel, The Island VI Form students

“The whole experience was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. We got to speak to people from many different jobs like the police and a water company, and we got to spend lots of time planning our own evacuation plan for a hypothetical situation. It made me think in a way I’ve never had to for any of my subjects and helped me understand just how much goes into planning evacuations in the real world; I found it a very interesting experience. The presentation at the end, I thought, would be scary to do, but because of how much work we’d all put into planning it, it was instead exciting as we got to share our ideas. I spoke to people from my year I hadn’t before and got to know other peers better. Also, the food was amazing! This has helped broaden my knowledge of future jobs and inspired me a lot. I would definitely recommend The Resilience Challenge happening again.”
– Imogen, Medina College