Team-building tasks for secondary
Activities, games and challenges to help you foster team spirit and encourage collaboration among your secondary classes
Whether at school or in the working world, knowing how to cooperate with others is crucial to success. So, with the academic year beginning to wind down, what better time is there to get students practising exactly that?
We’ve gathered together some of our favourite resources, including hands-on challenges, thought-provoking riddles and team-building games, to ensure that teamwork really does make the dream work in your classroom.
Team-building games
It is important for pupils to be able to trust their peers when working alongside them, so why not gently introduce the concept of teamwork with these fun activities? Further strengthen bonds and encourage positive communication with this selection of energising games, complete with ideas for pairs, groups and the whole class.
Highlight the importance of cooperation using these team-building exercises, in which pupils work together to capture flags, avoid quicksand and untangle knots. Alternatively, take some inspiration from this compendium of ideas, offering a variety of fun mini-games to encourage teamwork.
Trust Building Games
10 different trust games including pairs, groups and whole class activities.
Perfect for form time, drama or sports or just as fun energizing activities in your classroom that will help to encourage positive relationships and communication.
Enjoy!
Team Building & Problem Solving
Group challenges
A successful team communicates clearly with one another, so motivate students to articulate their opinions concisely with the help of this desert island debate. Similarly this challenging problem promotes cooperation alongside higher-order thinking.
For a more practical challenge, get learners designing and creating the most efficient windmill as part of this competitive group activity. Or, test their collective ability to work together under a time pressure with this spaghetti challenge, which sees them racing to build the tallest tower using only dried pasta and marshmallows.
Ice breaker - desert island plane crash debate
Can my Form work in Teams to solve a puzzle?
STEM Challenge: Windmill STEM Challenge
Here is what is in the packet:
1. Teacher Guide
2. Prototype Worksheets
3. Results/Review Worksheet
Spaghetti Challenge: STEM activity
In this race against the clock students work as a team to build the highest tower possible out of dried spaghetti and marshmallows.
The objective of this lesson is to explore structures and investigate what methods of building can make the tallest and strongest structure. By testing their prototype buildings, students will also have the opportunity to rebuild and alter their designs to improve them, giving an insight into the real-life processes of testing, redevelopment and prototyping that engineers and scientists use.
