Head Girl Blog
Tuesday 12 September
Eleanor Smith
Bush Craft experience
Friday evening and Saturday morning saw pupils from Year 9 and 12 involved in a Bush Craft survival campout, where we imagined that the school had come under nuclear attack. Initially we had to decide the five key items to have with you out of options including digestive biscuits, jerry can, netting, a duvet cover and a flint and steel.
The challenges had us in mixed groups building shelters in the forest to potentially accommodate Mr Fisher overnight. Some people became rather keen including myself. When retrieving large logs, I was surrounded by stinging nettles. I proceeded to put my hand on a frog, shocked, I eventually crawled out of my cubby hole in the woods to be faced with Mr Fisher’s camera!
From shelter building we ventured off to create fires and after two attempts Stella, Rachael and I successfully lit our fire with vaseline, cotton wool and sawdust. Following this was axe throwing and whilst waiting for our turn, our group witnessed some near misses and some incredible throws that almost made it onto the next field. Between trying not to hit Mr Fisher on his bicycle and perfecting the technique we all displayed obvious determination. Ke was the most successful in our group with two perfect shots that saw his axes stick into the slab of tree trunk. I was less successful on my first go but on my second throw I was driven to get one on the target. Those who saw my throw were as amazed as I when my axe took out a large pizza slice sized chunk of the slab of wood. It wasn’t quite the throw I was going for but at least I hit the target in some sort of way!
The final activity of the evening was Archery Tag and having done Laser Quest before I thought it would be similar. However it was a lot more fun, and something to definitely do again. Playing in our houses bought out a strong camaraderie and sense of teamwork. Equipped with fairly intimidating looking helmets, a bow and cylindrical foam tipped arrows we were set to play. Taking cover behind bunkers whilst stashing arrows we waited for the game to begin. On the word ‘GO’ everyone picked their targets and released the arrows - some luckier than others. I had some lucky shots which hit some less fortunate people that were not expecting them. I received many shots whilst retrieving arrows mainly on my legs. Being the only other Year 13, I was determined to hit Head Boy but his tactic of staying at the back payed off and I was less than successful.
After the Loddon vs Lydney game I apologised to Mrs Holliman who backed into a corner thinking the gym cupboard door was protecting her from our shots, unfortunately for her I had two rather lucky shots one of which was a little too accurate and hit her in the side quite hard, sorry again.
Toasting marshmallows, drinking hot chocolate and singing campfire songs was last on the agenda for the night and I would say that this is where I realised how lucky we are to be at a school where there are opportunities like this to bond with your year group, with new and old pupils in our fantastic grounds.
Thank you to Mr Fisher for organising this experience which has certainly resulted in better teamwork and communication skills along with the integration of new pupils.