Fitzroy North PS Year 5 Camp Blog

The year five legends from Fitzroy North Primary School embarked on a journey to unleash their greatness when the buses rolled through the adventure park gates on Monday the 31st of July. Over the next two and a half days these legends would push themselves to the limit, find out what they’re capable of, test leadership in teamwork challenges, and unleash some greatness.

Camp has begun after the year fives had a chance to drop their bags off in Bungalow Village when they head to the Stadium to meet their team of coaches: Sam, Sunny, Zoe, and Sonic, who would be with them every step of the way on their adventure throughout camp. The room was buzzing with clapping, cheers, and excitement but before we head down into the park for activities, coach Sam shared the Five Keys ingredients to a successful and epic camp. The key ingredient the campers were given were:

1. Have Fun - find the joy in every moment

2. Play All In - you get as much out of camp as you put in, so play all in, do your very best

3. Make Lots of Mistakes - camp is the best place to make lots of mistakes because it’s a giant playground! We encourage people to make all the mistakes because often times that’s the best way to learn

4. Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable - embrace the nerves and get used to the feeling of butterflies in your stomach, because when you get comfortable with that, then it’s easier to grow

5. Don’t Go Home Wondering “What If” - when the busses roll in on Wednesday, make sure you’re leaving camp with no regrets

Equipped with the ingredients and recipe for the most successful camp, the legends ran down into the park to really start the fun. The first thing we did was play an awesome game of 50, where everyone absolutely smashed that challenge by keeping Jilly up in the air for over 68 counts! That set the bar high!

Zoe and Sam then demonstrated Helmet and Harness Basics 101, teaching everyone how to properly rock a helmet and harness for higher-up activities. Following that, coach Sonic shared a phenomenal goal-setting strategy that would help campers achieve anything they want! This goal-setting strategy is called Target, Stretch, and Super Stretch, and involves breaking a task down into three manageable goals. The first goal: a Target, is all about setting a goal that’s something on the edge of your comfort zone you know you can do. The second goal: a Stretch, is all about setting something you think you can do. The third goal: the Super stretch, is the goal that’s so wild and so far out of your comfort zone it almost seems impossible! With all this knowledge in their minds and tools ready in the toolkit, campers were ready to hop into their teams and get into action!

Fresh in new teams, they all got to identify their team values and their tribe’s identity by working together to solve some initiative challenges and coming up with a team name.

Team 1 - Team Raglarfart (that’s Trafalgar backwards)

Team 2 - Team 1735

Team 3 - Team Knuckleheads of Wonder

Team 4 - Team Muddy Lions (or M-Lions for short)

The first set of activities the teams conquered had them: soaring across the lake on the Flying Fox, literally bouncing off the walls at incredible speeds in the Inflatables, scaling ladders for the ultimate view of The Summit on Tash’s Ladder and using teamwork and collaboration to compete for the fastest time in the Bush Challenge.

Half a day in and campers had smashed out two huge activities! The day wrapped up with learning about a camp tradition called “GMIC” - which is all about acknowledging the awesome things achieved throughout the day. Campers were encouraged to write down some “Great Moments in Camp” on a piece of paper and then put it into the GMIC box where it would be picked out at meal times and shared! Already at dinner time, there were quite a few GMICs to be read out!

Day two started with talking about the power of setting your day up for success by setting a morning intention. We all watched a Soul Pancake video which showed the positive impact that a group of people made on everyone around them, purely by showing up and having some fun! Seemed pretty similar to camp! After watching that we got inspired by hearing some of our own daily goals to be supportive, have fun, and be a team player.

We soon set sail down into the park and warmed up for the day by playing an elimination game of “Pirates” to find out who is really cut out for the pirate life! When the top five pirates were determined, we split off into activity groups to smash out the last two activities before a new set!

The legends were pushing their goals to new levels, stretching their comfort zones and diving into every challenge willing to go, and always helping out the team! All were achieved in rain, hail, and shine, as the weather took a turn on Tuesday morning, but that held no one back! Some unbelievable records were set in the Inflatable obstacle course, check out these record-breaking times!

Henry from team 1735 sped through the obstacle course in 17.35 seconds!

Bea from team Knuckleheads of Wonders smashed it in 20.23 seconds

Arlo from the Muddly Lions did it in 19.07 seconds

Campbell from the Raglafarts crushed it in 20.07 seconds!

After lunch the campers started a whole new set of activities that would stretch them even further by having them flying on one of Victoria’s highest Giant Swings, crawling through the darkness in the Cave, and ascending new heights by climbing higher levels in the Summit Window and using strategy and skill in a head to head battle of Laser Skirmish.

Two more rotations were done and dusted, but the day wasn’t over yet because it was time for the much-awaited Monster Course! There had been whispers about what this entailed all camp, stories passed down from older siblings about what twists would lie ahead. The Monster Course involved mud, water, cold, teamwork, communication, leadership, support, and resilience! After one epic lap of the monster course, the secret was revealed, the rumors confirmed, and tales from older siblings turned out to be true when it was told that they were going to run it all again!

The winner of the course wasn’t the team that did it the fastest the first time, but the team who improve the most on the second time, so every single team rose to the challenge to run it all again! A huge congratulations to all the teams on their awesome improvement times.

The Raglarfarts = 8 minutes

The 1735’s = 8.35

The Knuckleheads of Wonders = 7.39

The Muddy Lions = 10.03

On the third and final morning of camp, although the legends had worked hard and were ready to go home, spirits were high and we were all feeling particularly inspired after hearing coach Sonic talk about gratitude is such a powerful motivational tool to use on the days that feel hard to conquer!

And just like that - ready, set, go! The two epic activities were completed and crossed off the bucket list!

Camp ended with some massive thank you's to the parent volunteers and the teachers who put so much hard work into camp and who were there to support everyone every step of the way!

After some final results were read, we wanted to acknowledge the MVPs from every group. At the end of the last activity, every group voted for someone who had really embodied the five keys of camp over the last two and half days. Congratulations to: Marlo, Sasha, B, and Bessie!

Bush Challenge times:

Raglafart - 20.05

1735 - 26.20

Knuckleheads of Wonder - 30.13

Muddy Lions - 33.54

It was then time to say goodbye. On behalf of all the Summit staff, we wanted to also say a big thank you for such a fun-filled camp! We wish every single legend the best of luck with the rest of 2023!

From coaches Sunny, Sam, Sonic, and Zoe