MIDDLE SCHOOL – CAMPING UPDATE

We have just finished Term One, and with it our first two camps for the year. The camping programs in Middle School are important parts of the education of our students and not just for the content learnt. Camps provide alternative opportunities for student interactions, different to the normal classroom or structured learning environment. This term, I remember sitting in the dining hall of our first camp, Year 7 Waterslea, and seeing one of our Home Room teachers deep in discussion with a student.

These quiet “down” times, while not unique to camps, are valuable in building relationships and supporting our pastoral care ethos. We know from academic research that positive relationships between teachers and students contributes significantly to student wellbeing and positive academic achievement (Hattie, 2011). Hence our camping programs aim to provide not only educational and physical challenges, but also opportunities to build relationships.

Providing space for chatting and spending time together at camps is important for relationship building but another advantage of camps, that we sometimes overlook, is the lack of technological distractions. For three days our students leave the intrusions of their phones and laptops behind. They are fully able to focus on their relationships without the distractions of the beeps, notifications and vibrations of their tech. I was recently reading a study from 2016 titled “The iPhone Effect: The Quality of In-Person Social Interactions in the Presence of Mobile Devices” (Misra, Cheng, Genevie, & Yuan, 2016). In the study, researchers surveyed visitors to a coffee shop after observing whether either person interacted with a mobile phone, even just to place it on the table. They found that people who had their phone away reported higher quality conversations and higher levels of empathetic concern. In Middle School our rule of no technology at camp means that students can prioritise face-to-face connections and focus on making friends and building empathy and connections, distraction free.

Our camping programs in Middle School have different aims and focuses. Some are about education and learning, such as our Year 5 Bathurst (Term 1) and Year 6 Canberra (Term 2) camps and some are about challenging our students emotionally and physically, such as our Year 7 Youthworks (Term 1) and Year 8 Ski (Term 3) camps. All of them focus on building resilient students through the encouragement of positive friendships and increasing a sense of connectedness.

We pray your child will richly benefit from these multifaceted camping programs throughout the year and look forward to hearing your feedback from your child’s camping stories.

GAVIN NEALE

Pacific Hills - Middle School