At the start of 2024 the Year 13s went on a camp to expand our leadership skills.

We had some guest speakers come to talk to us including TGHS old girls (Laura Seyb, Olivia Seyb, Kate Poulter, Libby O’Connor and Makayla Low), Anna Bollard, Toast Masters, Mrs Rush and Tenkia Reihana. The past students came to visit us at Gunn’s Bush to let us ask them questions and gave us their advice based on their previous experiences being leaders of our school. Other speakers spoke about changing our mindset and thoughts, how important it is to keep our well-being in check and how to speak well in front of an audience. As well as these guests, we wrote letters to our future selves to open at graduation, sorted committees for 2024 and spent time with our house groups.

One of our activities was the Gunn’s Bush Track. This was done in our house groups at night once it was dark and the aim was to find Mr Collins somewhere along the track and grab our house paperclip. This tested our communication skills and teamwork as each house split up in half in hopes of finding him quicker as this was a loop track.

Most of the group made it back to camp about midnight. Some were still out a bit later! Throughout this time we created stronger bonds with one another as a group. So this was quite the late night for some of us, although this strengthened our teamwork as we were all beyond tired by this point and just wanted to get back to camp and hit the sack.

Massive thank you to Ms Grant for organising and running this camp, and thanks to all the teachers who contributed. Special mention to the guest speakers who took time out of their day to come and talk to us. We all appreciate it. Overall this camp was definitely memorable!

Ashlee Hinton and Evelyn Lyne