Week Three: Camp

Well it only took two weeks for me to fail my "Weekly Reflection" goal! Hopefully I'll get the hang of this regular blogging gig eventually...

Week Three started as normal, with two days of standard classes, increasing levels of disruption in all classes, a call home to parents about one particular student, and a promise to myself to call parents more often after a very successful phone discussion with said parent and a notable improvement in behaviour the following day from said student.

On Wednesday the week got interesting as we headed off to Year 7 camp. What followed were some of the most exhausting days I've had since backpacking Europe. It was such a great opportunity to build connections with students, enhance our team cohesion and extend ourselves. We all faced our fears of heights with a giant swing, flying fox, abseiling and rockclimbing, drove dirt buggies, rowed dragon boats, completed an assault course, had a water fight, hosted a disco and more. The kids were so well behaved. It blew my mind how boundless their energy is though! At the end of each day I wanted nothing more than to trundle off to bed, but there they were running around after dark with torches, getting down at the disco and generally living it up.

Ten Things I've Learnt This Week:
1. Always, always, ALWAYS lock your cabin door.
2. Never underestimate your students.
3. We all need to get dirty every now and then.
4. Nothing beats a well timed Death Stare through a dark bedroom window.
5. You can never bring too much sunscreen.
6. You can never bring too many spare water bottles.
7. You can never bring too many Band-Aids.
8. Personally supervise all redheaded students' sunscreen application.
9. Teachers can go days without going to the toilet.
10. I can already see how much I'm going to miss these little tackers when they go onto Year 8. :-(