Mt Hira College Year 9 Camp Blog

When the buses from Mt Hira College rolled through the gates of The Summit on an unusually overcast Monday morning, we were preparing for what was going to be a challenging but ultimately rewarding week. The energy and enthusiasm from all the students were almost out of control and we loved it. The other coaches and I gathered in the Stadium with them to introduce ourselves and our Five Keys of Have Fun, Play All In, Make Mistakes, Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable, and Don’t Go Home Wondering What If, before playing a couple of games, showing everyone how to put on a harness and how to set themselves Targets, Stretches, and Super Stretches, and getting into our first couple of rounds of activities.

After introducing the concept of teamwork in their new groups with a few Initiatives, we got straight into Giant Swing, which was an instant favorite, a wet Snowy River Challenge, and a run around the grounds with Orienteering. 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:

Grp 1 - The Jushies

Grp 2 - Frankston Shopping Centre (although we felt that by the end of camp, they had graduated to Karingal!)

Grp 3 - Fluffy Bunnies

After an evening walk on Monday, Tuesday was kicked off with a morning Intentions chat in the form of being aware of how our actions and behaviors affect those around us, before getting straight into the next round of activities. The afternoon turned out to be a bit wet and cool, but everyone was so into the activities we couldn’t tell.

Before lunch we had the opportunity to start another round of activities, this time introducing the students to our epic Leap of Faith, dark and creepy Cave experience, and one of our most challenging activities on camp, the High Wire! It was so awesome to see almost every student give it a go!

Tuesday afternoon we also 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, and funnily enough only having 30 seconds separating all three groups!

Wednesday started with another chat about gratitude in the form of a look at taking things for granted before we completed our final round of activities. 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 the parents, teachers, and students from Mt Hira College for an awesome camp. 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, Zoe, Aron, Sara, and Liam