Aquinas College Year 8 Camp 3 Blog

Wednesday afternoon, the buses full of Aquinas College students and staff rolled through the gates of the Summit. Eager to get started they all made their way up to their accommodations.

The Summit coaches were welcomed by their team leader Steph, and the Five Keys were shared with the students by Sarah, as they are the ingredients for a great camp. As the students were shown to the stage, they played a quick game of 50, students then were placed straight into their groups. Students were taught about setting ‘targets, stretches and super stretches’ to help them break down activities that might feel overwhelming. Two activity rotations were run and then the students had some free time before dinner!

Day two and we started the day off with an Intensions session with Steph, where the students were asked to think about who they wanted to be for that day and what that looked like. Told about how we can choose to let the things we can’t control determine what we do. 1. Weather 2. Other people and 3. The activities they’re doing. Students were asked to think about and share an ‘I Am’ affirmation, to help guide them throughout their day. Students were led down to the Volleyball court to play a game of Jockeys and had all the fun! After three massive rotations with morning tea in between, students then made their way up to the lodge for lunch. Once lunch was complete, the students changed into their Monster attire, we ran them through the last rotation for the day. It was time to begin the Monster Course and the students were briefed and ready, the first heat went off, followed by two, three and four, where two teams got to run side by side in contest, all groups smashed their first lap, but little did they realize that the true test of resilience and grit was doing the Monster Course twice, the winner of the Monster Course was the tribe with the best improvement time, comparing their first lap to their second! Every team gave it their best and got through the course together, improving by at least 8 minutes or more! Well done!

On the last day and there were a lot of tired faces in the room, we read out a bunch of GMICs, followed by a gratitude session by Sarah, where they were asked what, and whom they were grateful for. We also set a quick intention as they only had two more rotations to go, and they didn’t want to go home wondering ‘what if’. The students then reported to the stage to do the final game, students got their bodies moving with a game of ‘Huckle Buckle’ on the volleyball court.

After the last two rotations had been completed, the tribes get to reflect on the camp experience with each other and then proceeded to choose a values winner for their tribe, someone who embodied the Five Keys consistently throughout camp (names stated in the table below)

All activities were as follows; Flying Fox, Inflatables, Bush Challenge, Abseil, Sky Bridge, Scavenger Hunt, Orienteering and Snake and Nails.

On behalf of the team and myself, we would like to say thanks for playing all in and having all the fun!! We hope you had as much fun as we did, all the best for the rest of the year.

Steph/Spinks, Ash, Rohan, Timmay, Mesh, Sarah, Shane, Sunny, and Adam ☺️