The Student Room Group

NCS challenge??

Hello! I'm interested in taking part of the NCS challenge next summer when I will be 15. Can I take part in my year 10 summer hols as some parts of their website say 16-17? Also, as I'm Muslim, do they cater for halal food? Thanks:wink:
The programme I did required you to be 16 by August 31st, so you could do it when you were 15 but it would be after Year 11. I'm not sure about halal food, I think it would depend on the provider of the programme. I'd recommend contacting them to check. Hope this helped 🙂
Original post by Kurapikachu
Hello! I'm interested in taking part of the NCS challenge next summer when I will be 15. Can I take part in my year 10 summer hols as some parts of their website say 16-17? Also, as I'm Muslim, do they cater for halal food? Thanks:wink:


I came back from NCS a week ago, you will have to wait until your GCSEs are done unfortunately, yet it is a great adventure and a great way to celebrate the end of exam season! Anyway, yes the meals provided to you are definitely halal, if you are wary you can ask, in my experience the food was 100% halal, make sure you do raise this to the staff though, just in case they are not aware when you apply.

Hope this helped!
Original post by Kanekaline
I came back from NCS a week ago, you will have to wait until your GCSEs are done unfortunately, yet it is a great adventure and a great way to celebrate the end of exam season! Anyway, yes the meals provided to you are definitely halal, if you are wary you can ask, in my experience the food was 100% halal, make sure you do raise this to the staff though, just in case they are not aware when you apply.

Hope this helped!


Hi! I'm just about to start NCS and was wondering how your experience was - how well did you get on with people in your group etc. Thanks!
Original post by JulietMadeleine
Hi! I'm just about to start NCS and was wondering how your experience was - how well did you get on with people in your group etc. Thanks!


Hey! It was such an interesting experience for me, that is, because I am usually not the person who will go and abseil and swim etc., so I'm not very outgoing so I applied to kind of broaden my horizons. My NCS wave for Phase 1 went to the Lake District. I had a great time, you meet your team and unusually you see the caring and supportive sides of your team members first before anything else which is strangely comforting as the Phase 1 programme is focussed a lot on teamwork. By the end of the first phase you really do start to establish friends (and yes, the photo opportunities are everything haha) and you all leave the first phase itching to see everyone again. Phase 2 was pretty cool, when you get to cook your own meals (hopefully someone in your flat will bring seasonings because it was definitely needed haha) and you also get time to really chill and get to know everyone when you are not jumping off things! It's great and you also get to plan and participate in charity projects and raise awareness for any cause that your team comes up with. My team were amazing, and you also have a Senior Mentor (or an SM as they call it) who goes around with you, you get to know them quite well also. Over the whole thing you really get familliar with not just your team, but the whole wave! Sometimes there is a definite boy girl split to begin with, but that changes as you get later and later into the programme. It really was a great experience and I urge you to go and make as many friends as possible and be as open as possible because on every wave we all meet those crazy characters that seem to bring us all together. Have fun, and make the most of it! Hope this helped :smile:
Reply 5
Original post by Kanekaline
I came back from NCS a week ago, you will have to wait until your GCSEs are done unfortunately, yet it is a great adventure and a great way to celebrate the end of exam season! Anyway, yes the meals provided to you are definitely halal, if you are wary you can ask, in my experience the food was 100% halal, make sure you do raise this to the staff though, just in case they are not aware when you apply.

Hope this helped!


Thank you soo much xxx
No problem at
Original post by Kurapikachu
Thank you soo much xxx


No problem at all! x
Original post by Kanekaline
Hey! It was such an interesting experience for me, that is, because I am usually not the person who will go and abseil and swim etc., so I'm not very outgoing so I applied to kind of broaden my horizons. My NCS wave for Phase 1 went to the Lake District. I had a great time, you meet your team and unusually you see the caring and supportive sides of your team members first before anything else which is strangely comforting as the Phase 1 programme is focussed a lot on teamwork. By the end of the first phase you really do start to establish friends (and yes, the photo opportunities are everything haha) and you all leave the first phase itching to see everyone again. Phase 2 was pretty cool, when you get to cook your own meals (hopefully someone in your flat will bring seasonings because it was definitely needed haha) and you also get time to really chill and get to know everyone when you are not jumping off things! It's great and you also get to plan and participate in charity projects and raise awareness for any cause that your team comes up with. My team were amazing, and you also have a Senior Mentor (or an SM as they call it) who goes around with you, you get to know them quite well also. Over the whole thing you really get familliar with not just your team, but the whole wave! Sometimes there is a definite boy girl split to begin with, but that changes as you get later and later into the programme. It really was a great experience and I urge you to go and make as many friends as possible and be as open as possible because on every wave we all meet those crazy characters that seem to bring us all together. Have fun, and make the most of it! Hope this helped :smile:


Ahh thank you, that's very help and reassuring! Idk why I felt like I was the only person to be apprehensive about it all lol. Thansk very much for the advice (general and specific!) and I'm glad you had a great time :smile:
Original post by Kanekaline
Hey! It was such an interesting experience for me, that is, because I am usually not the person who will go and abseil and swim etc., so I'm not very outgoing so I applied to kind of broaden my horizons. My NCS wave for Phase 1 went to the Lake District. I had a great time, you meet your team and unusually you see the caring and supportive sides of your team members first before anything else which is strangely comforting as the Phase 1 programme is focussed a lot on teamwork. By the end of the first phase you really do start to establish friends (and yes, the photo opportunities are everything haha) and you all leave the first phase itching to see everyone again. Phase 2 was pretty cool, when you get to cook your own meals (hopefully someone in your flat will bring seasonings because it was definitely needed haha) and you also get time to really chill and get to know everyone when you are not jumping off things! It's great and you also get to plan and participate in charity projects and raise awareness for any cause that your team comes up with. My team were amazing, and you also have a Senior Mentor (or an SM as they call it) who goes around with you, you get to know them quite well also. Over the whole thing you really get familliar with not just your team, but the whole wave! Sometimes there is a definite boy girl split to begin with, but that changes as you get later and later into the programme. It really was a great experience and I urge you to go and make as many friends as possible and be as open as possible because on every wave we all meet those crazy characters that seem to bring us all together. Have fun, and make the most of it! Hope this helped :smile:


Also, how many people there were 17 when you did it? Bit worried I'm gonna be the oldest person lol. Idek why I'm worried tho it'll be fine
Original post by JulietMadeleine
Also, how many people there were 17 when you did it? Bit worried I'm gonna be the oldest person lol. Idek why I'm worried tho it'll be fine


Funny story about this, on NCS one thing you will do every day is play icebreaker games, and on my particular wave, we found out through an icebreaker that no one on our wave was 17! Which was a first for our group of staff, apparently haha

But I wouldn't stress about it, my friends all told me when they went on waves before and after me, that there are quite a few 17 year olds there, so don't worry!
Oh really! Ok thanks, that's good to know 😊
Do you need to bring a swimsuit?

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