Thomas Mitchell PS Year 6 Camp Blog

On the stunning morning of Wednesday the 18th of October 2023, the Summit welcomed back the year seven students and teachers from Thomas Mitchell Primary School.

Students were promptly shown to their Cabin accommodation, where they would be staying for the next couple of days! After they got settled, they were welcomed into the Lodge where coach Spinks gave an introduction to camp and the coaches! Spinks introduced Aron, Sam, Sunny, Sarah, Odile, Sophie, and The Summit’s very own recipe to the best camp ever, our Five Keys.

These keys are:

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

Without further ado, we all headed down to the activities hub and started with a game of 50 Up. Then Sam and Yves taught everyone how to put on a helmet and harness, followed by Liam telling everyone an epic goal-setting strategy that would help us to grow our comfort zones and conquer challenging activities we call 'Target, Stretch, and Super Stretch'.

Campers started their first activity with an Initiative Challenge that involved working together to solve a puzzle. This tested teamwork and leadership, but teams rose to the challenge! Then we moved on to our first activity rotation. The activities that campers got to do at camp were Laser Skirmish, Inflatables, Skybridge, Snowy River Challenge, Giant Swing, Rock-wall, the Summit Window, and Leap of Faith. This range of activities challenged the students' bravery, team spirit, support, trust, creativity, and problem-solving (to name a few!). Day one ended with introducing the students to a camp tradition called GMICs, which stands for “Great Moments in Camp” - this is all about writing down and acknowledging some of the awesome moments we’ve seen.

Day two started with an epic talk about setting a morning intention with Spinks, learning about how important it is to choose to focus on the things we can control, mainly, weather and people. Asking the students to think about who they wanted to be and how they wanted to show up for; themselves, others, and of course the activities. We then played a quick game of Heads or Tails, before getting into the park and playing a game called Pirates, smashing out three rotations of activities before lunch.

After lunch, to warm up before the Mud run, we completed a massive relay of shoe bowling. All teams fought hard, leaving us with Bean Bandits going head-to-head with team Hectic, the Bean Bandits won! All teams were briefed and ready to tackle the Monster Course and off they went. Once the first lap was completed all teams took a seat on the stage, at this point they thought they were finished. Here at The Summit, we genuinely believe in unleashing everyone's greatness, we select the winner by the time most improved, so all teams ran the course for the second time, this was a feat of teamwork, strength, and resilience, all teams improved by 9 minutes and more (listed in the table below). As students completed the course, they were then able to have a go on The Summit's blue waterslide to rinse off.

As the last day rolled around, Coach Spinks took the kids through a gratitude session, where the students were asked to think about who and what makes them feel grateful and to ‘check back in’ for the last activity and game for camp. The group games played were a repeat after-me exercise called Big Star Little Star, Jockeys to get the students competitive, and Keepings Up where they set a target, stretch, and super stretch, our final score was 69, well done. As the final rotation ended the students were asked to vote for someone in their tribe who represented/embodied the Five Keys the most throughout camp. (listed below along with the results)

On behalf of all of us here at The Summit, we would like to say a huge thank you! We wish you all the best for the rest of the year!

Spinks/ Sonic, Aron, Odile, Sunny, Sophie, Sam, and Sarah 😊