Hundreds of bags and shuffling feet covered the front entrance of Carrol College as Yr 7 and 11 students rushed about, frantically loading their camping gear onto the buses...
The Yr 11 peer support leaders - 29 of us in total - were scattered amongst the mass yr 7's...it was gonna be a long camp...
After a long Bus trip to Tabourie Lake Caravan Park, and a sea Yr 7 & 11's setting up tents...Mr MacAteer, the camp coordinator, split us into our groups...there was a ration of 3:8 - 3 Yr 11 peer support leaders and 8 yr 7's.
I don't want explain in detail every activity but more outline our experiences...The usually activities of team bonding, getting to know one another and having fun at the beach and jumping pillow, were the activities being taken part :)
But what i enjoyed and what i shall remember was the time spent on patrol with the staff...Mr Fogarty, Brady, MacAteer and Mrs Harris...
The discoes had ended and the Yr 7's had been ushered to bed...the Yr 11's being asked to stay back so Mr MacAteer could 'talk' to us...i don't wanna delve too deep into that...but he expressed his unsatisfaction with the camp and how they should've done it...Some common faults amognst the Yr 11's and even some faults by the teachers...
When we were given permission to leave...Yr 7's were still getting ready for bed and so did i...having a quick shower before our patrol...
Being Peer support leaders we were required to spend and hour or so on 'patrol'...and so we did...the first half an hour we walked about telling the Yr 7 boys to 'go to sleep', 'keeps the noise down', 'lights out' and according to the teachers 'go to bed or i'l strangle you'...
But what i'll really remember was the way the teachers treated us...back when we were in yr 7 we were treated as children, babied and look after...as we stood there amongst them...they were relaxed, friendly and quite funny...
In on case where we - myself, Rhys, Jono, Josh, Mr Bath and i think Mr Fogarty - were standing in the middle of the boy's lines were talking and laughing quite loudly over some sort of incident or story that 'Bathy' was telling us...
As soon as he heard the Yr 7 boys talking behind us in their tent...he yelled at them telling them to go to sleep...immediatley he looked at us and started laughing aswell...i was a little shocked by his actions...as i had never seen this side of him, nor most of the teachers there...
Being out there in this situation allowed not only the Yr 7's to connect with each other, ourselves and the teachers but it also gave us a chance to get to know the teachers a little more too...
I can't wait for out Yr 11 retreat :)
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