Nigel Bidgood FRGS, the Head of Borealis Expeditions at The Mount School York, spoke with pupils and parents about the Borealis Academic Society and Arctic Expedition programme that the school has started. Mr Bidgood and the new Principal, David Griffiths, shared the merits and benefits that these expeditions have on a young adults’ personal development and their future aspirations and prospects.
The Mount School Borealis Society is dedicated to furthering the academic education of Sixth Form girls in matters relating to the arctic and sub-arctic areas of our planet and at its epicentre to providing opportunities for them to experience major mountaineering and trekking expeditions to these boreal areas.
Challenging Environment
These expeditions are intended to provide a challenging environment in which the girls can step outside their normal physical and mental comfort zones but within a distinct academic learning experience that is intended to both widen their intellectual horizons, and broaden their experiences, of the world beyond the school gates. This academic learning experience will involve areas as diverse as biology, geology, history, culture and geopolitics and will take place both within school and on the expeditions themselves.
Expeditions
The emphasis of these experiences is based firmly on developing such personal qualities as resilience, self-reliance, independence, team work and confidence. Past pupils from the Principal’s last school, Wycombe Abbey School in China, who have taken part in these expeditions waxed lyrical online about their experiences and the impact it had on them personally and on the decisions they had made in their College year about future academic studies. In light of these benefits, they strongly encouraged their younger peers to take part in the future planned Mount School Borealis expeditions to Iceland in 2022 (for the present College II girls) and East Greenland in 2024 (for present Year 11 and College I girls).
It is opportunities and experiences such as this that, not only set The Mount School York apart from others, but also sets our pupils apart from other applicants when applying for wider academic and working opportunities.
