On the 13th of November a group of year 7 students from Breens attended a leadership day at Christ’s College.

Before we started we had some entertainment to start us off with Brendan Dooley who was a comedy magician. In 2015 Brendan got awarded with New Zealand’s best comedy magician.

After that we got split into groups. In my group we had to construct something that would support an egg so when we dropped it of the building it would not break. We used; 1 balloon, duct tape, 1 roll of regular tape, plastic straws, paper straws and an egg. After we constructed our support for the egg, we dropped it off the building, with the egg inside. Our nerves turned to excitement when we discovered that our support surrounding the egg was a success. Our egg did not break! We were very pleased with our result.

We had to work as a team and listen to everyone’s ideas while making the structure. It was a fun day!

Holly, Hīwai team

On the 13th of November, I travelled with a group of Breens students to Christ’s College to represent Breens at the Be Inspired Year 7 leadership event. We registered at 12:30 and we were given a booklet with a timetable and information.

At 12:45 we watched a comedy/magic performance by Brendan Dooley. It was fun and entertaining, he told an important story. His story was about how even if you get knocked down, you get back up again. That lasted for about ¾ of an hour. After he finished up we were divided into completely random groups with the kids from the other schools, I thought that this was a cool idea as it would improve our team-building abilities.

We then started our first workshop, we were assigned with Attitude Trust. Attitude provided us with information about being a leader at our schools and then they provided sheets for us to fill out, these sheets told us our animal personality trait. After that Attitude explained to us about the different animal traits meant and how they define all of us. I thought this was a really thoughtful and good idea because they talked about how our personality makes us so unique in every little way.

So after Attitude, it was time for us to move to our second workshop. For our second workshop, we were with The Student Volunteer Army. For this workshop, we had to find a partner and guide our pair through a FAKE minefield. I thought this was great for improving our listening skills and team-building.

After this, we had some very nice afternoon tea and then we went home. From this experience, I took away that every negative can be turned into a positive, and that nothing can hold you back.

Kieran, Hīwai team