Last week the Year 10s headed to Marysville for the three-day Wellbeing Camp.

With a focus on learning about and embracing diverse strategies when faced with more challenging times, the camp also presented the students with the opportunity to reconnect with their peers and others in their year group they may not have reached out to before.

Upon arriving at Marysville, we visited Steavenson Falls, a site ravaged by the Bushfires in 2009 yet now very lush with vegetation. The landscape provided a picturesque spot for morning tea.

The students were warmly welcomed at the El Kanah Retreat where we settled into rooms and ate lunch. Ms Merran O’Connor, Deputy Principal: Student Wellbeing, then ran a wonderful session talking about the VIA Character Strengths. From honesty, kindness, prudence, to zest there was much discussion around the diversity of individual strengths. To foster engagement with one another, each student was presented with a blank card whereby a peer would discuss the three defining strengths they saw in them.

Affirmations were an ever-present theme throughout the camp, and all students were encouraged to write a number throughout the three days for as many of their peers as possible. As the Year 10 students embraced this activity they realised the strength in expressing gratitude to others and then receiving it in return.

One of our guest presenters was Dr Casey Delmara who talked about ways to increase resilience, develop effective copings skills, manage stress and how to empower oneself to take a proactive approach to mental health. Dr Delmara introduced the students to the ‘Daily Dose’ journal enabling us to implement this for the following two mornings whereby the students reflected on their previous day and the one that lay ahead of them.

The other two guest presenters included a Taungurung man who performed a Welcome to Country smoking ceremony, along with a discussion about his people and culture on their traditional lands. The students found his presentation to be informative and thought provoking. Equally engaging was a presentation on the Bushfires whereby many stories were shared about the experiences of surviving this traumatic event.

All three speakers spoke to the concepts of both resilience and gratitude, strengths all students have needed to draw on as a result of their individual experiences throughout 2020.

Additionally, the Year 10s had a rotation of activities which included a walk into the town of Marysville, and a yoga session led by an experienced local instructor. There was a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle which many helped to solve by the end of the camp and two craft activities which generated time for mindfulness and engagement with their peers whilst making ‘Gratitude Bags’, friendship bracelets and origami.

On the second afternoon, students immersed themselves in the spaghetti challenge. Eight groups of students had the task of building the tallest structure out of 25 strands of spaghetti, 1 metre of both string and tape, with an entire marshmallow having to be placed on top. This activity promoted team work, design elements as well as listening and communication skills with the aim to achieve a structure that could remain free-standing after only 18 minutes.

The final day highlight saw the girls upholding a St Catherine’s tradition – the Year 10s writing a letter to themselves that they will open on their first day of Year 12. The students fully embraced this activity, writing personal pieces, knowing they will be the only ones to read it.

Overall, it was a wonderful camp as the Year 10 students were able to press pause on the demands of a normal school week and connect with their peers. Recognising their strengths and strategies at hand offered the students the opportunity to reflect upon strategies they can instil in their day-to-day lives to continue experiencing a growth mindset.

It was a pleasure to see the students’ individualities shine throughout the camp and I look forward to continuing to facilitate their ongoing growth, and to build on the strategies embraced whilst at Marysville.