Making Connections

Year 7 Camp and Activities Week 2019

This year, the Year 7 team launched Camp and Activities Week, a new initiative at De La Salle. Spanning five days, the week-long programme was designed around the theme ‘Making Connections’, with activities designed to foster connections to self, community, faith and the environment. As well a three-day camp at Ace-Hi Ranch at Cape Schanck, students participated in a day-long spiritual retreat, as well as study skills workshops, yoga classes and personal training sessions. 

Getting young people away from their tech sometimes be a challenge, however, we were very pleased to see how the students embraced the chance to get moving and trying new things. And our surveys after the week showed that our students did indeed make the most of the opportunity to make new friends and do new things. The spread of activities students nominated as their ‘favourite’ was a testament to the variety and diversity of the programme. 

Already making plans for 2020, the team will continue to refine and tweak the programme so it will enhance the transition of our young people into De La Salle. 

Dr Melissa Walsh
Year 7 Co-ordinator

Student Report

Year 7 camp at Ace-Hi Ranch was an amazing experience that I’m glad I could share with my classmates and with people who weren’t even in my class! On the first day, we arrived at around 10:30 and were given a safety briefing. After putting our things in our cabins, we then started our activities in small groups, with our De La teachers Miss Skinner and Mrs Martin also joining in. We did rock climbing and the photo-find on the first day, and at night when everyone had finished eating dinner, we were told to get our torches because we were going on a night walk. This walk took us in a loop around the farm and back to camp. At one point we stopped at a point that only had 7% artificial light, which is rare in Victoria. We had an awesome view of the stars in the night sky.

Up early the next morning my group did zip lining and the leap of faith. The zip line was great because you could see forever in most directions. Our last activity on the final morning was horse riding — the horse I got was called Franky. The camp is a memory that I will remember for a long time — I would not change any of it. 

Xavier Corrie
7 Benilde

Back to The Duce Issue 2019 07 - 16 May 2019