Bona Vista Primary School Blog
On Wednesday the 12th of October, The Summit welcomed the lovely Bona Vista Primary School cohort to camp!
Although the weather was overcast and drizzly, enthusiasm wasn’t lacking, and we knew from the word go this camp was going to be absolutely awesome.
Straight off the bus, students were shown into their glamping accommodation for the next couple of days. Soon after beds were claimed and snacks were eaten, students were introduced to their coaches that would be with them over the camp experience! Before activities could commence, we talked about some values that coaches Ash and Sunny wanted to encourage students to embody over camp, to turn it from a good time to an absolutely epic time! These values were:
Have Fun
Play All In
Get comfortable Being Uncomfortable
Make Lots of Mistakes
Don’t Go Home Wondering What If
Once the talking bit was done, we ran down to the park eager to begin!
The first activity we jumped into was the ultimate test of teamwork; the Bush Challenge! This had students working together in a time trial to complete physical and mental teamwork challenges, such as the Mud Wall, the Foam Pit, the Wobbly Wire, the Memory Game and the Giant Puzzle. This was the ultimate way to discover some teamwork skills that would come in very handy over the next day and a half! Already it was amazing to see all the encouragement and resilience shown in the first activity! Working together students got an impressive time of 46.44 seconds!
The second and final activity of day one was a test of creativity and fun making, as we split into two teams to compete in the Scavenger Hunt Challenge. The aim was to work together as a group to check off a list of tasks to get more points than the other team. The first task was to come up with a team name - group one declared they would be called the “Smexy Goats” whilst team two proclaimed to be the “Fart Munglers” (which means, collectors of farts). Then, teams had to dress up in some fabulous attire in order to complete the tasks, dripping in style! Teams were competitive and scores were close, but the Smexy Goats were the winners with 390 points, and the Fart Munglers were the runners-up with 320 points.
Before day one was over, teams learnt about a Summit Camp tradition called GMICs, which stands for GREAT MOMENTS IN CAMP! This was an opportunity to write down some inspiring and courageous moments we saw someone do.
Day two started with setting some epic intentions for our day. We read out some GMICs from day one, talked about the power of words, wrote down some quotes that were going to inspire us, and then chose a word that we wanted to live by for that day. Some beautiful quotes were shared and some legendary words were chosen. Kind, courageous, self-belief and supportive were just some of the words we chose to embody. To get us energized and ready we raced out into the park where Ash lead some games of Egg, Tiger, Crane! Sienna and Jasmine were the champions of that game!
Our first activity of the day we all did together was the Abseil Wall! This was all about climbing to the top of the big tower, admiring the view, and then taking the plunge to abseil down! Even though the idea may have seemed a bit daunting, the team practiced setting some goals with the Target, Stretch, Super Stretch strategy, which helped them step outside their comfort zone, and unleash greatness. Poppy bravely went first on the Abseil and showed us how it was done, Isaac followed soon after and was encouraging teammates to give it a crack by telling us how epic it was. Ash was SUPER brave when they achieved their super stretch, and Jasmine and Erin were buzzing with excitement as they went way beyond what they thought they could do! Down below on the ground, Sienna and Oli were harness helping legends while Billie was ready and waiting to give everyone a big congratulatory hug once they reached the ground!
Next up was the Snakes and Nails activity! This activity was a thrilling two-parter that had the team walking across an actual bed of nails, and then getting to hold a live python! Everyone conquered the nail board as they gave it a go, some people saying it was easy and some that it was a challenge, but it was fantastic to see everyone give it a go and do their best. Piper particularly inspired us all when she walked across the nail board because she showed so much courage and strength! After we had all given the nail board a try, we moved on to the snake part of the activity, where we got the chance to hold one of the Summit’s resident-friendly snake Mitch. Snakes are one of the top 10 most common fears, so it was awesome to see people conquer their fears! Everyone gave Mitch a pat or a hold, even if they were a bit nervous! Charlotte did amazing when she pushed through her fear and held Mitch’s tail!
After some fuel and a lunch break, we dived right back into activities and did the Rockwall. In this one, the team showed how agile they were, as they got the chance to scale one of our three rock wall challenges. Benji showed what a speedy climber he was as he raced up the wall! Blink and would have missed him! Griffon also showed what a natural climber he was and was always there to support his team! Not many people did the overhanging wall, but Shiola did and she absolutely crushed it, climbing well above the overhang (which is one of the toughest parts).
Coming up soon was the famous Monster Course, but before the teams began they spent some time channelling their team spirit into creating a group flag and a team chant.
The chants that were made were:
WE ARE THE FART MUNGLERS
SEE OUR POWER STANCE
WE ARE THE FART MUNGLERS
WATCH OUR VICTORY DANCE
WE ARE THE FART MUNGLERS
ALL HANDS IN
WE ARE THE FART MUNGLERS
WE’RE GONNA WIN!
WE ARE THE GOATS
HEAR US BLEAT
IF YOU WANT TO TRY BEAT US
GET USE TO DEFEAT
WE ARE FAST
WE ARE KIND
IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE US
YOU’LL SEE FROM BEHIND!
Chants were chanted, music was blasting, energy was buzzing, and it was time to start! The Monster Course was a team vs team incredible feat of problem-solving challenges, physical challenges and teamwork activities. Communication, resilience, courage and cooperation were put to the test, and these teams rose to the challenge! Once the first lap was completed and teams had given it their all, they found out a surprise was in store when Ash revealed that the winner of the course wasn’t actually the team that did it the fastest, but the team that could band together on the second lap and improve the most. Some thought they couldn’t do it again, and that they’d given their all in the first lap, but everyone came together to SMASH the second lap of the course. This proved how strong, capable and encouraging the students of Bona Vista are!
Improvement times:
SMEXY GOATS - 14.09
FART MUNGLERS - 19.41
Congratulations to the Fart Munglers for winning the Monster Challenge!
Time had flown and day three had rolled around sooner than we thought!! We started the day off with a talk on gratitude and how powerful it can be to start your day off thinking about all the wonderful things we are thankful for in our life.
To get all warmed up for our last activities we started off with playing a game of Pirates, where Liv proved she be the captain of any pirate ship!
The first activity of the day we did was the spectacular Leap of Faith activity! This had everyone climbing up several ladders on the outside of the big tower, then taking a leap of bravery and jumping off! It was agreed by everyone that it was “harder than it looked” however the team showed epic bravery as they climbed the ladders! To support our courageous participants everyone crew of cheerleaders were on the ground helping encourage them on for every step! Great job everyone!
Our last activity of camp was a series of trust and teamwork activities, this was an awesome final test to measure how far we’d all come in learning more about trust, communication, collaboration and support.
And with that, all the activities of camp were over! We finished a reflection over the past couple of days by acknowledging some heroes in the group, some camp challenges we overcame and are proud of, and of course our highlights of camp.
On behalf of The Summit staff, we’d love to thank the students and teachers of Bona Vista Primary School for an incredible three days. We are so grateful for all the laughs, the fun, and how everyone gave camp their all! Best of luck with the rest of 22!
From
Sunny, Ash and The Summit Leaders!
