Aspendale Gardens PS Year 6 Camp Blog

On a sunny Monday afternoon, the students of Aspendale Gardens PS came through The Summit gates. Eager to get going they were shown to their accommodations, students got together in the Lodge and were introduced to the coaching staff and team leader Spinks. They were told about The Summit's ‘Five Keys’ to a successful camp. Shortly after they were shown to the stage and played a game of 50- Up to move their bodies. Students were shown how to put on a harness and a helmet and introduced to our goal-setting strategy called ‘Target, Stretch, and Super Stretch’.

Here are the Five Keys:

1. Have Fun

2. Play All In

3. Make Lots of Mistakes

4. Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

5. Don’t Go Home Wondering ‘What If’.

Groups then smashed one rotation of activities and thought of their tribe names. All tribes then completed tribe identity, where the groups created a flag to carry around with pride for the rest of camp.

Day 2 and the group looks ready to go after breakfast. We started our day with morning intentions and were shown the video “20 things we should say more”, asking the students to think about who they want to be for the day for themselves as well as their team. The tribes completed three epic rotations where we witnessed heaps of targets, stretches, and super stretches.

After rotation 3 and lunch all groups had a TRIBE CHALLENGE to complete, a massive Tug of War competition took place, to determine the tribes' positioning in the upcoming Monster Course. With the tunes pumping and cracking out the nut-bush with teachers and students the energy high the groups took off. After nailing their first lap, the groups were unaware they were going to run the same course twice, we do this to show resilience and teach the students that when they think they’ve got nothing left, they can dig deep and still keep going.

On day three, the final day of camp, the tribes had two more activities to do. In the morning, when the tribe made their intentions clear we also did gratitude, Spinks ran the group through a group visualization where they could use a remote to flick through three categories: Family, Pets/Animals, and Friends, allowing them to take the opportunity to be thankful for the people in their lives. The last key: Don’t Go Home Wondering ‘What If’, students were challenged to not go ‘checking out’ early and to be present during the last two activities. To start off the tribe got their bodies moving by playing a game called Jockeys. They then completed two rotations of activities to wrap camp up.

The last debrief the tribe completed was where the students were told to reflect upon camp and the growth that has been shown. The team also voted for a values winner amongst their tribes, someone who represented the Five Keys throughout the camp; after the values winners were chosen and read out, they got the honor of keeping their tribes' flag.

The activities that ran were Giant Swing, Summit Window, Sky Bridge, Cave, Snowy Rover Challenge, and Laser Skirmish.

On behalf of The Summit and the coaches, we would like to thank you once again for joining us on camp and wish you all the best with the rest of the year ahead.

Spinks, Sarah, Mim, Sara, Jakob, Odile