Stepping out of comfort zone and facing challenges

The National Citizen Service (NCS) programme delivered by the Community Trust is for all pupils aged between 15 and 17 years old.It’s a chance to challenge themselves outside of their comfort zone, and also help to gain valuable skills for work in the future.The NCS staff take groups of foundation learning students out of Myerscough College for a week to give them an action packed experience. Most recently the staff took a group and the club’s Under-18s to Scotland for a week.This focused on team building exercises, with one of the activities being a ‘Come Dine with Me’ challenge, where they had to pitch their ideas to us, and then go and cook it.Some players and pupils surprised the Community Trust staff on the day, others might need to go and practice their cooking skills. The NCS program has three phases to it.Phase One focuses on outdoor activities, which challenes a range of adrenaline-fuelled activities such as kayaking, abseiling and archery. Phase Two sees the students reunited with their group in a university hall style environment and with this focuses on the students developing the life skills they took on board from the previous stage. Then Phase Three puts everything into practice and this is where the student will get the chance to give something back to the community.James Hill, who made his senior debut against Leicester City last week spoke about his NCS experience and would recommend it to anybody who hasn’t been on the programme before.He said: “I had a great time on NCS trip to Scotland, especially on the residential course we went on. As a group we pushed ourselves and really grew as a team, which I am sure will help us as the season goes along for the Under-18s.”