Studying the Blue Mountains
Tuesday saw the entire year group head up to the inspirational Blue Mountains. Under the guidance of the Geography staff Year 8 experienced an amazing field trip to see, in real life, all of the concepts and topics they have been discussing in class. Please find a video below showing highlights of the day.
Monday this week, to celebrate St. Joseph’s day, years 7 and 8 made the journey south to Jamberoo Recreation park. Both students and staff (who seemed to rediscover the inner child!) had a great day enjoying the many rides and swimming attractions. Below is a short video from the day and also a presentation of photos.
“In the morning I woke up and jumped straight out of my bed and ran to have a shower. As I was lining up all I could hear was everyone talking about all the good rides they are going to go on. Not long after my shower I was already on the bus in my seat buckled up ready for the trip. The trip flew past because we watched a great movie called Dickie Roberts .There was a bit of car sickness behind me but they was all cleaned up thanks to Mrs. Tracey. We finally arrived and everyone was hyped up for our big day. We exit the bus and meet up at a grassed area where we are talked to by the instructor about what to do and what not to do. After this we were given recess and then set free to roam around the park. The first ride I went on was the splash and I raced down with matt McMahon. I then went on my favourite ride of the day which was the Taipan. On the Taipan you race down a long winding tube with five other friends hoping come out safe and sound. Some other rides that were extremely fun was the toboggan and the big 5 metre rock jump which, if you were daring enough to jump off, was very fun. Another exciting part was when Geoff Walford found a snake and picked it up thinking it was fake and realised it was wiggling and squirming all over the place but with fast reflexes he threw it in the bin. All too soon it was time for the last ride and I decided to go on the Taipan with Jack Costigan, Jack Robbins , Banjo travers, and Monty Tate. Jamberoo turned out to be a fantastic and enjoyable day …Sam Plunkett ”
Photos from the day.
Hints: Click on the arrows to navigate through the document . Click on the presentation to view in fullscreen.
Last week the first year 8 class of 2010 left the College and headed for a week of adventure at Colo.
It is great to hear from the Colo staff that the boys gave fantastic efforts in the activities, worked very well together and brought a lot of energy to the week.
A great start to the year!
The following boys have provided their reflections on their week of adventures:
“For me the most enjoyable and challenging activity was the kayaking, as it required a lot of concentration and skill because if you put too much weight on one side of the boat then it would capsize. When we did the kayaking we had to wear shoes as the lagoon was manmade and had obstacles at the bottom.
When we first got into the boat we had free time to explore the lagoon, I was Geoff Miller. Then we did a couple of activities like races and skill test. When we did the race, I had to race to the shore and come back, unfortunately I could not get back onto the boat and we lost by an embarrassing margin.
As we kayaked, we had many people who tried to capsize the boat and on many occasions did succeed. The day ended with a quick swim and after that we put our stuff away..”
Akshat Marwah (West Ryde)
“The most enjoyable activity for me at Colo was the orienteering activity. The task was to find and collect 20 marks, all of which were scattered in hard to reach places. They would either be in the midst of the Colo bush or in the middle of the dirty lagoon. I was in a team of three members; they were Xavier Hazard and Akshat Marwah. For the whole of the afternoon we were scrambling around for markers in the 35 degree heat. At the end of the 1:30 hour period, we had collected a total of 10 markers out of a possible 20 markers. It was a very enjoyable task and I had a fun time with my teammates.”
Nicholas Moses (Hunters Hill)
Colo in Year 8 is much more enjoyable and challenging than Year 7. The best part of Colo for me was definitely the rock climbing. There were 3 options to choose from and each was about 8 metres high; an easy option, a moderate option and a hard option.
I tried all three but only made it up the easy and the moderate. The hard option was called El Cat and only Matt Dane and Tim McCutcheon made it up in my session (others included Liam Clark and Harry Day). All in all the experience was amazing.”
Xavier Hazard (North Ryde)
Please enjoy the video below with footage taken by Bindjarla Cook (Wollongbar) and Xavier Hazard (North Ryde).
Welcome to the year 8 blog for 2010.
The boys have made a great start to the year. The video below has some photos from the first week including Technology with Mr Findlay, around the lockers, early morning Latin class with Mrs Schofield and a javelin master class from Mr Rollo. It also includes video footage of all the boys enjoying lunch.