This March, Year 7 students had fun and learnt teamwork skills through orienteering with a practice at Hagley Park.

It was Friday, the 12th of March when Rhodes House planned to walk to Hagley Park for an orienteering session. However, we still had to learn how to orienteer first! The instructors from Peninsula and Plains Orienteering came to Heaton and met us in the hall for a briefing. They taught us how to read a map properly by showing us what the symbols on it meant. This was to ensure we didn’t go astray at Hagley (and so that we actually had fun instead of not being able to find anything).

We practised orienteering with two maps of Heaton Intermediate. Both of the maps’ controls were different and had different stamps. Once we finished one of the maps, we moved on to the second map. If we managed to finish both, one of the instructors played a game with us.

Afterwards, we took a 45-minute walk to Hagley Park. It was tiring, but the end experience was rewarding. We walked along the Northern Line Cycleway to avoid walking down busy roads, but we had to watch out for pedestrians and cyclists. Considering we were all drained from the walk when we arrived, we sat to eat our lunch and recharge. After we ate, the real fun began. The instructors explained the base rules to us, sorting us into groups of 3 or 4. We were given two maps and one question sheet. The question sheet required us to use the map to go to certain points in the park, where the answers were. Despite the map being slightly outdated, most teams did very well, and overall, it was very entertaining. Our group didn’t place, but the experience was absolutely worth it.

In the end, orienteering was one of the best activities we did this term and a great experience. We would absolutely go again and highly recommend it. It was a 10/10 experience.

by Ayshanie and Irene