When the buses rolled through the gates of The Summit on a hot and dry Wednesday morning, we were preparing for what was going to be an amazing week. The energy and enthusiasm from all the students were addictive and we loved it. The other coaches and I gathered in the Stadium with them to introduce ourselves and 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”

The inflatables and the Rock Wall were the instant highlights, Tash’s Ladder was challenging, the Bush Challenge was epic, Leap of Faith was scary and our the Flying Fox was just fun. There were definitely many personal boundaries pushed and fears overcome, with too many kids to mention pushing beyond what they first thought they were capable of.

Towards the end of the first day, each group was asked to come up with a name for themselves that was agreed upon by all, and these are the names they came up with:

1. Grp 1 – 13 M &M’s
2. Grp 2 – Two Tiny Twisties
3. Grp 3 – Spongebob
4. Grp 4 – Goated
5. Grp 5 – The Super Stretchers
6. Grp 6 – George’s Rocky Waffles

We also gathered in the Stadium after our first rotation to create a Tribe Identity by making a flag. Each of the teams were incredibly creative and took so much pride in what they created.

After an evening walk on Wednesday, Thursday was kicked off with a morning Intentions chat from Kid President before getting straight into the next round of activities. The afternoon turned out to be very warm and muggy, but everyone was so into the activities we couldn’t tell.

Thursday afternoon we embarked on our epic Monster Course, a mud run around the grounds of The Summit involving tyres, charades, mud, cargo nets, holey buckets, mud, a ball pit and more mud! The course was scored using each team’s improvement time from the first lap to the surprise second lap, with everyone doing amazingly, but being dominated by 13 M & M’s!

After the Monster Course we decided that we weren’t done and the waterslide looked too tempting so a quick slide was the best way to end the day.

Friday started with another chat from Spinks about gratitude before a game of Pirates and our last two rotations.

After we wound up the last of our group challenges, we then asked each of the kids to vote on a Values winner, or the person in their group they felt used our Five Keys the best to make camp a rewarding experience for not only themselves but their whole team. The winners are listed below with all the times for each of the recordable activities.  We gathered on the stage to say our thank yous to all the people involved in making this camp epic before reading out the winners of the various activities.

Thank you so much to Aaron, the teachers and students of Spotswood Primary School for an awesome week. You were all so incredibly dedicated to ensuring your camp was an amazing experience. We at The Summit can’t wait to have you back again soon.

Adam, Ennis, Mim, Fran, Lucy, Spinks and Maddie.