Thank you to Year 6s Charlotte and Hayley for sharing their camp experience in their own words:

Charlotte

From the 11th to the 13th of May, the Year Six cohort spent three days at Forest Edge Av�԰� near Waroona. It turned out to be one of the most memorable and character developing experiences of our lives. Av�԰� looked different for all of us – to some people it was their first time away from home, and to others, it encouraged us to expand our paradigm. From the moment we arrived, we were involved in a number of activities that improved our leadership values and challenged us not only physically, but mentally and emotionally.  

Av�԰� wasn’t just fun – we learned a lot as well. We learned that the only way to achieve a result is to work together, with everyone playing a part. We learned that leadership isn’t just telling people what to do, but helping and communicating. Each and every one of our activities, the crate climb, incentive course, spiderweb, big fox , billy carts, pamper pole and abseiling, taught us something new. Through activities such as the spiderweb and crate climb, we learned teamwork and communication. When people were scared during the pamper pole and abseiling, we encouraged and supported each other. At the start of camp, we were challenged to expand our paradigms, our comfort zones. By the end of camp, we had done not only that but had learnt valuable life lessons and had become closer as a Year Six cohort.

Hayley

On the 11th of May, we set off for our first Year Six camp! Our teachers accompanied us, but the teachers had been at the campsite before. The bus ride went for over and hour and a half, but we saw beautiful things all around us. Then the bus stopped. We were at Forest Edge Av�԰�site. Forest Edge is near Waroona, a small town in WA. We had morning tea as soon as we got there, and then we had a bit of a play. Then we got to find out who was in our dorms. Each of the dorms had a famous Eagles or Dockers footy player’s name, on top of the doorframe. The boys slept on the side with the Eagles players and the girls slept on the Dockers side. Your activity timetable depended on what group you were in, as groups did these activities together.

On the first and last days, we did these four activities, two each day. The Spiderweb is a 3 down by 5 across rectangle, with a wooden frame and ropes to separate each separate square. The goal is to get everyone through the spiderweb, without touching the rope or frames. Here’s the catch. You can only use one square once, by only one person! This tested the groups leadership, communication and teamwork. Billy Carts. When we got there, we had to build our own billy carts! They taught us how to use a wrench, and to put the seat on last. Once we had finished building the billy carts, we pushed them up the hill. One of the partners would hop into the seat, while the other held onto the billy cart, so it didn’t spread down when it wasn’t supposed to. Then, the instructor called us one by one to let go of the billy cart, and let our partner steer around crates and tires on their way down. The abseiling. For abseiling, one person would get buckled up to a vertical rope, while the others got buckled up to a horizontal rope. When the horizontal rope gets pulled the vertical rope pulls the person buckled to it up. Once the person gets to the top, the instructor pulls them into a little safe area, where they buckle them up to another rope. Then, they have to basically walk backwards down a vertical wall. When the instructor yelled “Go!” the others run backwards, while tugging the rope. When the instructor yells “Stop” you stop. When the yell, “Forward!” you walk four steps forward. When they yell, “Re-load!” then you go back to where you started and someone else gets buckled in to the vertical rope. This process repeats until everyone has had a go abseiling. This works on our bravery, encouragement and teamwork. The pamper pole. The pamper pole is basically just a vertical cylinder with bits sticking out. You can climb as far up the pamper pole as you like, but if you get to the top, then you can try to jump off, and hopefully touch the ball that’s hanging off of a rope. But a teacher from another school had gone up the pamper pole, and had hit the ball so hard, it had gone around and around the rope, making it virtually impossible for us to touch it. This focused mostly open bravery and encouragement.

On the second day, we did three activities. The crate climb, the Big Fox and the Incentive course. Two groups did the incentive course at the same time, but went different ways, and met up at the location for the mud fight. The mud fight had some rules, like no under arm and you can’t ditch the mud at each other. Once the mud fight was over, we crawled under possibly electric fences, and walked around a dead kangaroo, until we reached where the bus was. One of the instructors drove us back to the common area building. (The building containing the dorms and kitchen) The Crate Climb. The goal in crate climb is to get a person in a harness up high enough to touch a rope with a knot in it, using only 30 crates. If you weren’t in the harness, then you were only allowed to stand on one crate, for safety reasons. In the end, everyone went for the 2 by 1 crate staircase, were you would add two crates on top of the pile of crates with the least amount of crates. This process worked really well for us. But if we didn’t make the crates click into place, or our tower wasn’t headed towards the rope with the knot, or we broke any of the rules, then the instructor would knock it down, and we’d have a group meeting, and start over. People would take turns of being the person in the hardness, but for the last person to go up the crates, they had to get blindfolded! Only the person in the harness would be blindfolded, so communication was key. This activity definitely focused on teamwork, leadership and communication. The Big Fox. The big fox is a huge flying fox, but requires a lot of work to keep it going. Once the person/people in the flying fox could touch the ground, then almost everyone else would pull a rope, which would pull them the rest of the way up. Then one of the instructors would safely get the person/people out of the safety harness. Then one of the instructors would attach the thing that the person/people who went down the flying fox with to a different wire. Then two people would pull the rope all the way back to where it started, so more people could go down the Big Fox! This activity focuses on teamwork and leadership.

The overall experience helped us to develop new skills and leadership qualities and was a lot of fun!