Spotlight on Year 7 Camp

Our Year 7 Camp was held in Term One and was a wonderful way for our students to really get to know one another and their teachers.

Year 7 sees a large number of new students enter the College, and also our Year 6 girls, ‘stepping up’ from the Junior School.

This year’s camp was held at Totara Springs near Matamata, and was focussed around building the girls’ confidence and resilience. For many girls, the four night camp is often the longest they have been away from their families, and it is a good first step in their Senior School journey as we build them towards their four week Year 10 adventure at our remote campus, Kahunui, in the Bay of Plenty.

Deputy Principal, and Head of Senior School, Suzanne Winthrop is a passionate advocate of outdoor education, saying that the inner confidence girls get from trying new activities, and learning to manage themselves, at this developmental stage, is invaluable.

“Learning in the outdoors, with team building activities, cooking together, tramping, and exploring nature, supports our girls to learn to work with people outside their immediate friendship group. “This is an important life lesson, and it also enables students to find deeper connections with their peers, and to develop new friendships. I travelled down to the Camp for the day, with Senior mentor Judi Paape, and absolutely loved it; the weather was kind, and the parents who supported the girls and the College as volunteers had a lot of fun themselves mentoring and encouraging the girls with their activities! We couldn’t undertake the camps without parental support, and their contribution was very much appreciated. Each parent was placed alongside a teacher or outdoor instructor, to maximise the learning opportunities for our students.”

Year 7 lead Sue Elgar, says that one of the most wonderful and rewarding experiences as an educator, is seeing girls who are facing a new or challenging activity, find the courage to have a go. “The look on a girl’s face when she has pushed her boundaries, and tried something new, is just fantastic.

“The whole philosophy for our students is challenge by choice – we let them know that they have a choice to do a new activity, and they can choose to dig deep and try the activity or not. Making it their choice, empowers them and teaches them that they are capable of making decisions, in a safe and age-appropriate way. This then supports them both academically, and emotionally, as they move through the College into higher learning.

The girls experience rafting and canoeing down a river, and they get to sleep outdoors for a night; for many girls (and some of our parent volunteers!), this is the first time they have slept in a tent, outdoors. Shared experiences like this really build such wonderful connections and memoires for the girls, and they come back with new friends and a stronger sense of themselves.

Coming up, as we were going to print with the magazine, our Year 8 students were embarking on their own camp adventure to Finlay Park, Lake Karapiro!