Year 7 adventures

On Wednesday Year 7 students enjoyed spending time with new friends, learning new skills and getting very wet! The Year 7 adventure day was a great success.

The girls were in groups of ten, mixed from all the forms, and spent the morning problem-solving. The most exciting activity was attempting to cross a green and murky pool by creating a bridge with planks which were too short to span either the length or the breadth. Several groups were delighted to succeed at the task. Other tasks included defusing a ‘bomb’, moving as a group with two planks and several cords, balancing along a rope and wood structure and building a bridge over an imagined canyon. The challenges were exciting and the skills of discussion, listening, experimenting were practised, amid lots of laughter.

The different techniques trialled in the morning’s activities prepared the girls for one of the afternoon challenges: to build a raft with barrels, poles and a variety of knots. There were some very successful rafts and confident raft-travellers, ready to paddle out and then play ‘heads, shoulders, knees and toes’ whilst standing on the rafts out in the lake. Other groups enjoyed kayaking, practising skills before setting off with instructors along a stretch of water linked to the rafting lake. Students who had never been in a kayak before embraced this part of the adventure in an impressive way, progressing from going round in circles at first to confidently powering through the water on the home stretch half an hour later. Determined to end the day wet, the girls joined in an instructor-led game, testing their balance and ability to move around the kayak and ending, inevitably, by splashing in to the water.

This was an excellent day and a promising start to the year ahead for Year 7 students.

View more photos from the day here.