Merribek Term 1 week 6 2025

Hi everyone and welcome to our week 6 blog!

The term is flying past, with students completing their final camp this week!

We had a week full of canoeing and rafting, starting off on Wednesday on the Yarra river where students were paired up in canoes learning how to use teamwork and communication to navigate down the river! We met teachers Coxy and Michael from Rubicon Outdoor School who would be working with the students for the rest of the week and teaching them the skills to canoe while also providing us with the equipment and canoes for the week!

Students were natural paddlers, all eager to get onto the water. we practiced forward and backward paddling and turning in a full circle. Students got the chance to see a Salem racing set up with some athletes also training on the course. Everyone gave the course a go in their large canoes, resulting in many falling out of their canoes due to the strong rapids. working together students helped their peers get back into the canoes performing a T rescue. Overall this was a great session for students to learn some canoeing skills and get comfortable on the water in preparation for our camp the next day!

On Thursday we headed off with a full crew to Rubicon Outdoor School in Thornton where we met up with Coxy and Michael to start the day. After lunch, students started prepping their gear into waterproof bags to take onto the raft while gearing up in thermals and life jackets. We split into 2 teams: girls and boys and headed down the Goulburn river in 2 inflatable rafts. Enjoying the company of others we were on the lookout for platypus and cows while with the help of Coxy and Mick we worked together to travel down the river smoothly, being cautious not the fall in. After approximately 2 hours on the water we reached our campsite and begun setting up our tents and kitchen area. Once all set up we enjoyed some free time playing in a small pond on the property and started getting ready for dinner. All the students contributed to a delicious butter chicken, kindly supplied by Rubicon. Unfortunately after dinner we experienced a heavy downpour of rain which cut our night short, and students headed to bed at around 9pm.

We woke up bright and early om Friday, eating some breakfast and packing up our stuff ready to continue our raft down the river. Students were asked to pick a character strength to reflect on throughout this camp, so we debriefed about this before heading off, asking students to explain how they best portrayed this strength on the camp and why they chose it. We had a shorter journey today, reaching our destination in about an hour. after unpacking we had an awesome 'bucket lunch' to finish off the camp!

A very big thankyou to Coxy and Mick from Rubicon Outdoor School for your support and resources in helping us run this camp, our student loved meeting and learning from you!

We had an awesome final camp for the program and it was great to see the students progression from week 1, it is clear that each of them have developed their skills across the program in not just the outdoors but back at school as well!