Australian International Academy Year 9 Camp Blog

On the 27th of November, the students from the Australian International Academy arrived at The Summit to start their school camp. Their extraordinary coaches Mim, Calarnee, Zoe, Taylor, and Franzie welcomed them with open arms. The students were introduced to The Summit’s values, the Five Keys:  Have Fun, Play All In, Make Lots of Mistakes, Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable, and Don’t Go Home Wondering 'What If'. These keys help the students make the most of their camp and make it an epic one.

The students then started playing a game of 50 Up, then the students received some information on how everyone can stay safe physically and mentally. The goal-setting strategy Target, Stretch, and Super Stretch helped them during the activities they would be participating in during the next three days. The first set of activities are Sky Bridge, Giant Swing, Laser Skirmish, Cave, Rock Wall and Snowy River Challenge. By the end of the first rotation, the groups would have needed team names that would be known for the rest of camp. However, with this team name, they would also need to make armbands as a part of a tribe identity.

We were starting the second day of camp early for a big day ahead of them. Calarnee inspired the students about the power of setting a morning intention and getting the students to have the best day as well as having each other held accountable to live up to their morning intentions. After making our way down to the barbecue shelter, we played a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors Chants. After, we then had three rotations before lunch. For lunch, we had delicious burgers, shortly after we headed down to the barbeque shelter and did a tribe challenge which was Tug of War. The game hyped us up for the Monster Course. What the students didn’t know is there was a twist, which was we ran the mud run twice. This is because the course is about pushing yourselves, building resilience and perseverance but also improving from their first lap.

Sadly, the final day of camp came too soon, Calarnee jumped at the opportunity to teach everyone the power of gratitude and how we should take time to remember the things we can be grateful for. This was then followed by a game of Crane, Tiger, Egg down at the barbeque shelter. Then we had our two final activities of camp. In our last activity, we reflected on all of the camp and picked a Values winner from our groups. Finally, at the end of camp, the results were read out and we had to say goodbye to not only our coaches before getting on the bus.