Growing through Challenge and Risk Taking
“Inside all of us is hope.
Inside all of us is fear.
Inside all of us is adventure.
Inside all of us is…
A wild thing.”
- Where the Wild Things Are
John Marsden, author and school founder, suggests that we need to let kids take more risks. Over his many years and extensive experience as an educator of children, he has observed that many young people have limited conversation skills, except when talking about what they'd seen on TV the night before. If they had any stories about real life experiences, it wouldn't be experiences that they had had. Rather it would be experiences recounted by their parents or grandparents.
Children need their own first-hand experiences to successfully build foundations for their own adulthood.
"We shouldn't be living our lives via Bear Grylls or the Top Gear team on BBC Television, we should be getting out there and doing things ourselves. The average child now has three points in their life and it's the home, the school and the shopping mall, and not many of them go outside those three points."
At Mosman Prep, our Outdoor Education program is jam packed with adventure and challenge! Our camps are bucket-loads of fun and the highlight of the year for many of our students (and for Old Boys in the past). It is a challenging program with a rich array of activities and opportunities.
Year 3 - Springwood
Bush walking (with leeches), navigating, climbing, initiative course, bike riding, damper cooking, the giant catapult, and Christian discovery.
Year 4 - Lake Macquarie
Archery, group physical challenge, damper cooking, sailing, canoeing, group games, and Christian discovery.
Year 5 - Coffs Harbour
Aboriginal ‘bush tucker’ tour, Dreamtime stories around the campfire; cultural tour of locations with Aboriginal students; commando obstacle course, giant swing, Zipline, Zorb ball, canoeing and initiative activities, and sharing meals with our Aboriginal friends; local Aboriginal preschool visit to deliver ‘fundraised’ books, bike helmets, basketballs and blankets, as well as singing songs, listening to stories, learning Aboriginal language and playing games; and surfing together.
Year 6 - Shoalhaven River
Abseiling, billy cart construction and riding, initiative tasks, jetty jumping, and the famous ‘pack and paddle’ - hike, canoe, and bivouac on the banks of the Shoalhaven River.
Year 6 Red Centre
Aboriginal desert cultural walk, exploring the MacDonnell Ranges including Stanley Chasm and Simpsons Gap, camel riding at the foot of James Range, exploring Watarrka National Park, Kings Canyon Rim walk, Kata Tjuta and Uluru on a truly unique tent camping adventure.
Our camps are carefully planned to be diverse, and to provide the opportunity to develop an extensive array of important life skills, such as resilience, respect, responsibility, curiosity, creativity, appreciation, independence, confidence, empathy, tolerance, commitment and teamwork.
Several studies have clearly established increased school performance through outdoor education. Research has documented improved standardised test scores, enhanced attitude about school, improved in-school behaviour, improved attendance and overall enhanced student achievement when students learn in and about nature. In addition, outdoor education effectively employs a greater range of children’s intelligences. Many researchers attribute the increase in performance to increased relevance and the ‘hands-on’ challenges of learning outdoors.
A very big thank you …..
I would like to thank all the staff who have sacrificed time with their families (and sleep) to support the boys in such an impressive manner during the camp adventures this year. Camp site leaders often comment on how invested our staff are with the boys while away. This is not always their experience, with some staff from other schools seeing camp as a time to ‘step away’ from involvement.
I would also like to take the opportunity to thank Greg McDonald for his vision, meticulous planning, and commitment to the boys, by developing and managing such a rich ‘camps program’.
Mr Peter Grimes | Headmaster
Reference:
Link - RNZ/Why children need the right to take risks
