Manor Lakes College Year 9 & 10 Blog

Wednesday afternoon, the buses full of Manor Lakes students and staff rolled through the gates of The Summit. Eager to start, they all made their way up to their accommodations.

The Summit coaches were welcomed by their team leader Steph, and the rest of the coaches; Adam shared The Summit's five Keys with the students; Have Fun, Play All In, Make Lots of Mistakes, Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable and Don’t Go Home Wondering ‘What If’, as they are the ingredients for a great camp. As the students were shown to the stage, they played a quick game of 50; students were then placed straight into their groups. Students were taught about setting ‘targets, stretches and super stretches’ to help them break down activities that might feel overwhelming. Two activity rotations were run, and then the students had some free time before dinner!

Day two, and we started the day off with an intension session with Logan, where the students were asked to think about who they wanted to be for that day and what that looked like. Told how we can choose to let the things we can’t control determine what we do. 1. Weather 2. Other people and 3. The activities they’re doing. The students were asked to think about and share an ‘I Am’ and an ‘I want' or 'I will’ affirmation, to help guide them throughout their day. Students were led down to the volleyball court to play a game of Jockeys and had all the fun! After three massive rotations with morning tea in between, students then made their way up to the lodge for lunch. Once lunch was complete, the students got changed into their Monster attire, all groups then took part in one more rotation before their afternoon tea, and the groups were briefed on the Monster Course, hyped and ready for the first heat set off, followed by heat two, heat three and finally heat four, where two teams got to run with each other. All groups smashed their first lap, little did they realize that the actual test of resilience and grit was doing the Monster Course twice, the winner of the course was the tribe with the best improvement time, comparing their first lap to their second! Every team gave it their best and got through the course together! Well done!

On the last day there were a lot of tired faces in the room, followed by a gratitude session by Steph, where they were asked what, and who they were grateful for. We also set a quick intention as they only had two more rotations to go, and they didn’t want to go home wondering ‘what if’. The students then reported to the stage to do the final game and got their bodies moving with a game of ‘Huckle Buckle’ on the volleyball court.

After the last two rotations had been completed, the tribes get to reflect on their camp experience with each other and then proceeded to choose a values winner for their tribe, someone who embodied the Five Keys consistently throughout camp (names stated in the table below)

All activities were as follows, Giant Swing, Leap of Faith, Rockwall, Snowy River Challenge, Cave, inflatables, Laser Skirmish and Flying Fox.