Our newest Kahunui Experience: Developing our Year 13 Girls The Kahunui Programme is an integral part of every St Cuthbert’s girls’ leadership development, as is the ‘Big Sister, Little Sister’ model, which supports connections between girls across the Senior School. With this in mind, we have launched a new Kahunui experience, for every Year 13 Leadership Committee representative.
This amazing five-day, four-night experience provides Year 13 girls with the opportunity to revisit Kahunui and take part in an outdoors-based programme, with leadership opportunities embedded in the day-to-day curriculum. The programme also includes some of the girls’ much-loved activities including kayaking, blokarting, a solo-survival experience, and a visit to the iconic Kahunui waterfall. The trip enables students to witness how their sustainability projects have come to fruition since their last visit, and, importantly, concludes with the Year 13 girls welcoming an Intake of their Year 10 ‘Little Sisters’ to Kahunui. The first Intake to experience this amazing new programme included our Year 13 Development and Games Committee, and in addition: Carmel Ah Chong, Bella Browne, Chloe Browne, Becky Fala and Jemima Hawkesby.
What impact did your Year 10 Kahunui experience have on you? Bella: Arriving at Kahunui in the summer months of Intake 7, I was a nervous yet extremely excited Year 10. I quickly learned through the various activities, that the feelings of excitement and nerves were the qualities that in fact helped me grow important skills in my Kahunui journey. Attitude was the first key lesson for me. Being excited not only helped
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equip me for the challenges and encouraged me to take every opportunity at hand, but also helped develop an eager and positive attitude towards everything. It has shaped my values and gave me life skills as a 14-year-old, that I still use today and most likely will, for the rest of my life. Jemima: In Year 10, I went to Kahunui with the aim of seeing the world differently. I learnt to live in the present and take any opportunity offered to me to see through a positive light and find the good in everything. I found ways to be a leader and improve skills in the outdoors through challenging myself and analysing my surroundings. Competence, maturity and hardwork are some of the qualities that made me embrace the time I spent at Kahunui, in 2018. I feel very grateful for my time spent there.
How did it feel to re-visit Kahunui as a Year 13? Carmel: Looking around as we arrived, I couldn’t help but feel immensely proud and humbled to see how far each of us had come since Year 10 and how close we’d become. It goes to show how fast time flies and I think a lot of us felt that. We were all making the most of time at Kahu, knowing that for most of us, it’d be our final time there and one of our last experiences shared as Year 13s.
