This week, I have been on school camp with our FP Project week students. FP is our foundation program, which is equivilent to Year 11 in NZ. The Project Week Camp has three key components based around CAS (creativity, activity, and service). Our students took part in a challenging 3 day hike, which includes 2 nights of camping in tents. The hike saw students learn to pitch and take down their tents, learn first aid, make their dinner (pasta and burritos), learned to use a compass and plan routes. Each student had the opportunity to plan the route and lead the group as well as to lead from the back of the group when hiking. We went kayaking, and students made bamboo catapults. The service part of the trip was making steps in the trail. For our group, it was a trail that ran through a tea plantation. The steps would help not only hikers but farmers.
An important part of the CAS program is reflection. Each evening, students would debrief and reflect on the skills they had used that day. Skills such as teamwork, collaboration, communication, planning, and problem solving kept coming up. We also talked about how we could use the skills we had learned back at school and the future. I remember an important reflection moment being when students were realising how to transfer skills from one activity to another.
Longchishan School Camp 2023
Keystone Adventures were the organisation our school used. Their staff were professional, well organised, experienced and struck the right balance balance between allowing the students to lead, to get a little off track and help them to find the right route again. They motivated students and built positive relationships quickly. For many of our students it was a week of a lot of firsts, challenges and we all had a lot of fun.
I had such a great time with the students. A highlight for me was the kayaking, and hiking through the tea planatations. At one point there was a bamboo forest on the left, tea plantation on the right and a temple up in the mountain – I think that was what I thought hiking in China might be like!
