On Tuesday the 24th of October, year 9 had their leadership day. Throughout the day we moved from classroom to classroom in K block, participating in various activities in small groups.

Before we split up into our groups, we had a competition as a year 9 group. We were separated into 3 colour houses on each side of the gym and we had to work together to keep the gym ball in the air for the longest. Benedict, Chisholm and McCabe came out victorious against MacKillop, Polding and Purcell. 

Drumming activity - In the chapel with Mr Garner, we engaged in playing instruments together. We played the drums, bongos, maracas, and other percussion instruments. This activity was lots of fun as it gave everyone an opportunity to ‘let loose’ and get involved without fear of embarrassment or judgement. 

Failure activities - ‘Failure activities’ was held by Mr Higgins. The theme of this activity was failure and how we can overcome it. It highlighted the importance of trying again, keeping up perseverance and to learn from the mistakes we make. 

Mindful or Mind full - This activity was held by Miss Brady. This activity was to help us gain information and tools about mental health and anxieties and how we can calm ourselves down when we experience these things. 

Brain teasers - The brain teasers were provided by Mr Vaughan. We were given the objective to recreate a sculpture using paddle pop sticks with a partner but the challenge was that our partner had to describe the sculpture without showing the builder the photo. We also played a round of scattergories with our partner to end the activity off. 

Mini sports - This activity was led by Miss Gray. We headed to the gym and played Red Robin. We competed against our group in 4 teams, using different tactics. Most opted for running into opposing teams areas while others tried befriending other teams to trade their cones with each other. 

The leader I want to be - With Miss Swan in this activity we drew ourselves and wrote our qualities that we have now, the leader we are now. She then asked us to turn the page over and draw ourselves with the qualities we would like to have, the leader we want to be. 

After recess we all came back together as a cohort and we were told we had to dress up two members of our groups in newspaper clothing for our parade. We went back to our groups and dressed up our prince and princesses in their newspaper attire and held a catwalk for our principal Mr Marshall. We cheered on our pairs for each group, seeing all the unique designs people chose for their respective prince and princesses. They walked individually and then all together in their pairs. Mr Marshall then chose his winning pair, Tobias Kinch and Ashlynn Crangle. We cheered and then went back to our groups to debrief. 

Overall it was such a fun and inclusive day with lots of lessons learnt, from learning how to calm yourself down, how to get back up after you fail, to engaging your brain and working together with your peers. We had lots of fun and would like to thank all the teachers for their inclusive ideas and making the day heaps informative and enjoyable.

Miriam Hutchison (Year 9)

BUSHCRAFT - OVERNIGHT WALK