Day 1

The journey down to Devon was a little long but without any incident, and the boys were very excited. That first afternoon they went straight into either attempting the river-run or playing games involving stretching themselves as far as possible! Nothing but laughter and cheering could be heard, and happiness abounded before heading into supper.

Day 2

The boys had a wonderful day, filled with kayaking and raft building in the cool water! They enjoyed lunch in the shade - factor 50 was liberally applied, and everyone covered up or stayed in the shade whenever possible. It was a perfect watersports day with some challenging team work tasks included.

Day 3

Today the boys faced the challenges of heights, water jumps, stinky bogs and walking across Dartmoor in the heat. They loved it! All the boys participated and had an amazing day as you can see in the photos below. Afterwards they enjoyed a massive supper and more games of course!

Day 4

Day 4 of camp was on-site, making full use of the high ropes, archery, trapeze-jumping and strategy games. The team was impressed that the boys stuck with the tough teamwork tasks and made a good effort to encourage and support each other. That evening we had the campfire fun to look forward to!

In the morning, the camp organiser talked to the boys about how challenges and personal development generally work for all people regardless of their age. It was a fascinating talk and pleasingly, the boys engaged and even offered their own examples with an excellent level of personal reflection. Essentially, the message was that if they allow themselves to stretch out of their comfort zones, even into their stress zones a little, they will move into their learning zones. He stressed that the best outcome of this scary and challenging risk-taking will be positive growth and development and this will allow them to feel more comfortable and confident about all sorts of new and exciting opportunities. Implicitly the boys understood that the challenges of the week, from the bog run to the high ropes, were only the start of what they might achieve if they took his advice.

There was much to reflect on in this quiet chat and I have been very pleased to see the boys incorporate this core message during their week at camp. I think you will all agree that from the photographs you can see that the boys have faced their fears, come out of their comfort zones and will return all the better from this wonderful experience!

Mrs Bailey
Head of Year 8
Head of History