Sandringham Primary School Yr4 Camp Blog

On May the first, the year four students of Sandringham Primary School arrived at The Summit Adventure Park!

Students were shown to their luxury tent accommodation and two groups even got to test drive the brand-new bungalows that had just been installed! Awesome.

After everyone had a chance to eat some lunch, it was down to business, getting to meet their five epic coaches and learning about the Five Keys of camp. These keys to having a fantastic camp are:

1. Play all in - give every activity of camp your absolute best, and you’ll be sure to have an epic time.

2. Make lots of mistakes - when we make mistakes we learn lots, so we encourage them all!

3. Get comfortable being uncomfortable - some activities will make you nervous, and that’s okay because that’s exactly when the magic happens!

4. Don’t go home wondering what if - leave camp with no regrets.

5. Have fun - most importantly, have all the fun!

Then it was time to get started! We began by playing a game of 50 Up, helping Jilly bounce her way to the Olympics! Then we split off into activity groups, where we did two rotations of some team challenge initiatives. By doing these, we talked and put into action our team values of collaboration, persistence, and communication. Then, of course, we had to come up with some unique team names! Teams came up with:

1. Warriors

2. Buff Ducks

3. Big Mac Whoppers

4. Not Just Bacon

5. Yoda Goats

After some afternoon tea to keep our systems fueled, we leaped into our epic activities! Over the next three days these activities had students bouncing around in the Inflatable City, using creativity and artistic skill to create epic flags in Tribe Identity, scaling ladders high in the sky on Tash’s Ladder, walking across a bed of nails and meeting Monty the carpet python in Snakes and Nails, and seeing the best view of Gippsland whilst being super courageous on the Abseil.

A lot of these activities put into action key number 3: get comfortable with being uncomfortable.. But that’s easier said than done, so students learned an epic goal-setting strategy to help break down overwhelming activities, and this is called setting a target, stretch, and super stretch.

And just like that, day one was done. Just before dinner, campers were introduced to a camp tradition called GMICs. This involved writing down an epic moment they’ve seen on a piece of paper, then putting it in the box for it to be randomly drawn out at meal times, then read out to give a shout-out!

Day two started off with learning about setting a morning intention. We learned all about how setting up our day can have a big impact on how it goes! Then we went down into the park to play a giant game of “Huckle Buckle” and then do three more activity rotations. All in one morning students pushed stretches and super stretches left, right, and center!

Lunchtime was when we needed it the most, and after chowing down on some burgers we got stuck into an incredible, never before seen game of five-way tug of war! Then it was time for the epic Monster Course. After a couple of light showers throughout the day, it was primed and ready - living up to its other name - the Mud Run!

It was a team vs team test of leadership, resilience, teamwork, and strength as students of Sandringham Primary School rose to the challenge. It’s had students working together carrying a car tire and linking arms all over camp from obstacle to obstacle, getting head to toe covered in mud! After one lap the news came out that the winner of the course wasn’t the team that got the fasted time on the first lap, but the team that improved the most on their second lap!! Every single person banded together to complete the challenge, with the idea of hot showers to keep them going!

Teams got some incredible improvement times.

1. 7:50

2. 3:48

3. 8:03

4. 3:59

5. 6:05

After a MONSTER day two, everyone slept well that night and woke up ready to conquer day three. We started day three by talking about gratitude and the power of reflecting on all the awesome things we have in our lives. We learned that if we can set our days up for greatness with a bit of gratitude even when we feel exhausted on day three of camp, then we can do it every day! We also read out some GMICs which was so lovely to reflect on how far we’d come in only two days! So many extraordinary goals were achieved!

Saying goodbye to the Blue Room and Tent/Bungalow Village, we headed down into the park for some warm-up games before heading off to our last activity. To finish off camp we battled it out playing a group Scavenger Hunt where teams completed challenges all around the camp to try and get the highest score. Congratulations to all teams for some awesome scores.

1. 370

2. 240

3. 390

4. 390

5. 270

Tied for first! Who would have thought? Well done teams 3 and 4! Then we read out some much-awaited results, and the values winners for each team got revealed. The values winner is someone who was voted for by teammates, and who lived and breathed the Five Keys. Well done to:

1. Maddie

2. Isla

3. Jazz

4. Poppy

5. Floyd

As a special reward from The Summit, these legends got a ride in our very own World War Two army tank! Camp wouldn’t have been complete without some final dance showcases! All the coaches were very impressed with everyone who learned the Cotton Eye Joe Dance!

A very special thank you on behalf of The Summit coaches for a truly wonderful three days. All the best for the rest of 2023!

From

Sonic, Marcus, Lina, Mim, and Sunny!