Advance College of Education Blog

On a sunny Monday afternoon, the students from Advance Collage drove through The Summit gates. Eager to get going they go to meet their leader Steph/Spinks/Sonic/Spag. Being a small group of 8 they all pulled their chairs into a circle, we all introduced ourselves and Spinks shared The Summit's Five Keys: Have Fun, Play all In, Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable, Make Lots of Mistakes and Don’t go Home Wondering ‘What If’ as well as GMiCs (great moments in camp). As we all made our way down to the Snowy Blue Room, we played three quick games of Around the World Ping Pong, Clap Call and YE-HA. With their bodies warmed up, we made our way over to Snake And Nails, people to highlight the session were; Pacco, Sam and Mia for stretching themselves on the nail board and also Bindi and Codie for having a 3:30mins standoff on the board! For the snake session, Bindi and Pacco were loving it, Sam and Darren managed to hold the snake, and Mia was brave enough to touch it. After Snake and Nails, we made our way over to the Big Tower to complete our last activity. Abseiling was heaps of fun, but the highlights were: Sam, Andy, Mia, Pacco and Roney facing their fears and getting it down the tower and Codie and Darren for doing 180 spins and mega jumps! To end day one we all played a game of volleyball and then had an end-of-day debrief talking about how we all went for the day.

Day two and we had a BIG day ahead, we started the day dancing to Cotton Eye Joe, we then did a morning intention session where we watched a video called 'A Wall of Words' by Soul Pancake. The students were then asked to take a sticky note and pen to write down one ‘I am’ affirmation, ‘I want to’ for the day and a quote they like. After they did this they put it in their pocket to carry around as a reminder for the day. The first game we played was Around the World Ping Pong, followed by their first initiative Helium Stick where they had Pacco helping from an outside perspective and Sam taking lead being one voice for the team. Bush Challenge was next, the team smashed their first lap in 15:43mins, they then were taught about the goal-setting strategy called Target, Stretch and Super Stretch. Using this we came up with a plan for their second lap; the target was 11mins, the stretch was 7mins and their super stretch was 5:30mins. They completed their second lap in an impressive time of 4:48, smashing their super stretch. We then made our way over to the basketball court to play two games of Two-ball Knockout; Codie won both games. The next activity was the Giant Swing where the group huddled hard and managed to get eight swings done in thirty minutes! Well done; Roney, Sam, Pacco and Sam for stretching yourselves. Next up was Rockwall where Bindi, Sam, Codie and Darren got to the top of the walls and Mia, Andy, Roney and Pacco for giving it their best and helping belay everyone!

Lunchtime and everyone got ready for the Monster Course and mentally prepared for the Leap of Faith. At the Leap of Faith, the guys were referred to as ‘sick units’ by the other school as they all stretched themselves in different ways; Sam did a blindfolded trust fall, Codie, Andy, and Bindi did a 180 twist and grabbed the bar, Darren did a 180 twist blindfolded and grabbed the bar and went upside down to come down. Mia stretched herself and made it to the bar and Pacco stretched herself and jumped off the platform as soon as she got up, without hesitation.

Before the Monster Course began we played a whole bunch of games; Egg Toss, quick water balloon fight, YEHA, Screaming Turtles (look up, look down), Clap Ball and 50 Up, safe to say they were warmed up and ready, after not only smashing their first lap carrying 3 tyres amongst 6 of them, they then managed to improve their time by 6 minutes on their second lap!

The last day rolled around and the group had two more activities to go; Trust Games and Sky Bridge. But before all of that we started with morning gratitude where we got our phones and send a gratitude message to someone in our lives that mean a lot to us, we then shared who we sent them to and made our way down to our first game which was Around the World Ping Pong. Trust games went really well, they went from level one; a two-person Trust Fall, to jumping into the team's arms and finally a trust fall. Before going over to the Sky Bride, the group did an initiative called Tiles, making their way from point A to point B, they completed the challenge in two attempts! At the Sky Bridge, they smashed out the bridge despite the rain and it being slippery!

The final debrief was in a circle and we used rock, stick and leaf to unpack the last three days, they then voted for two people that consistently embodies the 5 Keys the most throughout camp, and the result; Codie and Pacco got the most votes, well deserved!

I can’t thank you all enough for the amount of enthusiasm and energy you all bought towards camp, giving everything a go and sharing and opening up to each other.

All the best with whatever you all choose to do next!

Steph/ Spinks/ Spag/ Sonic