Home
About VBCA
Administration
Calendars
Contact Us
Emergency Info
Handbooks
Internet Safety
Our Location
Scholarship Central
Search
Site Map

Background & Information | Procedures | Curriculum | Benefits

Virginia Beach City Public Schools introduced a Ropes and Initiatives Program to students and staff of the school division during the 1998-99 school year. Participants in this program are required to work with other group members as they face challenges that prompt them to stretch their minds and flex their muscles. Participants are asked to play games, solve problems and overcome obstacles as a group. This helps them get to know each other and to become supportive of each other.

Support from the group helps participants meet individual and group goals. Some of the games and problem solving activities take place in a field. Other activities require the use of obstacles that have been build using trees, poles, cables, rope and wood. To overcome some of these obstacles, participants must climb or be lifted up to four feet off the ground. To overcome others, participants don harnesses and helmets and climb to about 30 feet. When doing this, a participant is on a special safety system called a belay system. His or her harness is attached to a rope that weaves through special equipment and is held at the other end under the direction of trained facilitators.[Top]

All of these games and obstacles are part of an adventure-based curriculum. During each activity, participants are asked to solve problems that have social, intellectual and physical dimensions. These problems are presented in imaginative ways to enhance enjoyment. Instructors using this curriculum strive to create a supportive, noncompetitive, but structured environment within the group. It is believed that participants who experience a joyful sense of adventure will be more willing to move beyond previously set limits on their physical cognitive, emotional or social abilities.[Top]

People who participate in Ropes and Initiatives Programs often find that they grow in many ways. Through participating in this program, people can:

	Increase balance, coordination and agility.
	Develop an increased joy in his/her physical self.
	Experience healthy risk-taking.
	Have fun doing giddy physical things he/she enjoyed as a child, which have since been
	declared "childish."
	Employ individual and group problem-solving skills.
	Improve frustration tolerance.
	Increase his/her level of self-confidence.
	Develop a sense of trust in others.
	Enhance communication skills.
	Enhance the spirit of cooperation among group members.
	Develop mutual support within the group.
	Recognize diversity of members in the group as an asset.
	Enhance conflict resolution skills.
	Enhance leadership skills.
	Build a sense of individual and group accomplishment.
	Generalize the skills developed and used on the course to everyday situations.
	Increase familiarity and identification with the natural world.

[Top]