Moreland Term 2 Week 3 2022
Gidday everyone!
On Wednesday, we spent the morning at Oxygen Youth Space. We first started creating a pictorial of our 'values tree' which included our individual cultural backgrounds, family, strengths, skills, hobbies, hopes, dreams, and significant people in our lives illustrated through the tree's roots, trunk and branches. This was a great activity to get to know each other more. The students presented to the rest of the group which they all did very well. This was good practice for their graduation speeches. We followed this activity with our Respectful Relationships Workshop. The young people engaged really well in open discussions about gender diversity, values in relationships and the importance of consent. The students learnt ways to show respect to themselves and others and some expected values to uphold effective relationships with teachers, peers, friends, family, and partners. We believe that understanding respectful relationships contribute to growth, maturity and self-confidence. It also promotes healthy self-expression, self-awareness and awareness of others, leading to acceptance and a celebration of diversity. The students have proven to us so far that one of their top character strengths is respect which has helped people in the group to feel safe, valued and accepted. The young people did really well at contributing their insights and engaging well in the workshop. For the afternoon, we went back to CAS and addressed the expectations of camp for the following day and learnt about the importance of self-sufficiency. This hiking camp is designed to be at times a little challenging so that the young people are able to build on their character strengths, such as perseverance, leadership and self-regulation. We also spoke about how we can change our mindset to be more positive when we experience low resilience responses. We started to pack our hiking packs with essentials which included a sleeping bag, mat, liner and wet weather gear and then added our food snacks, clothes, tents and all extras on Thursday before we left. This meant that all students were geared for independency, having the essentials to keep them warm, safe and dry.
On Thursday morning we picked up the students at Collingwood station and then went back to CAS to complete the rest of our camp pack for The Cathedral Ranges. On the hike, everyone did really well at carrying their packs, especially on a day we experienced a fair bit of rain! We started at Sugarloaf Saddle and took the Messmate Track to Cooks Mill and followed through on the Little River Track to our final destination - Neds Gully. The students took turns leading throughout the day. The walk was approximately 7kms and because it was raining, we had to be extra careful when we were walking. We were very impressed by the students' efforts to push through it. We focused on building high resilience responses and each student managed to show that multiple times on the hike. There was a lot of encouragement between the peers which was nice to see. Once we arrived at our campsite, the students were eager to put up their tents straight away despite their exhaustion. After setting up camp, we had some free time and made some snacks before cracking on with dinner. The students cooked a yummy spaghetti bolognese for tea which was a success. After dinner we sat around the campfire, roasting marshmallows and making s'mores :) For our debrief session, students identified ways the were able to adopt a growth mindset when they found the hike challenging and how they overcame those negative thoughts. They also pinpointed one character strength they used on the hike, any issues they may have had and acknowledged someone for their helpful efforts. It was great listening to everyone's highlights of the day.
On Friday we did well with getting up, getting some breakfast in us and packing down camp before heading to Stevenson's Falls in Marysville - one of Victoria's highest waterfalls. The location was beautiful and the young people showed great interest in the appreciation of beauty and excellence. The students continued to take turns leading the group to the bottom of the falls and then to the top to the viewing deck. It was a great end to our camp. Once we made it back to Melbourne, we unpacked the bus and organised all the gear. During our final debrief, students identified a different character strength they used from the previous day and was asked to recognise a character strength of the person sitting next to them and discuss how their strength was used. The young people rated the camp highly which was great to hear! Everyone seemed to be pretty pooped, so a sign to a great camp! ;)
Thanks for an awesome first camp! Well done all :)
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