Year 7 Bushcraft
Year 7s began their year with an exciting trip to Bushcraft early this term. Highlights included making fires, roasting marshmallows and devising some interesting trap mechanisms! It was a great opportunity for everyone to get to know each other better and a wonderful time was had by all.
Watch a short video highlighting the trip here.
Please see below for a piece written by Emma K., Year 7, on her time at Bushcraft:
“Bushcraft was such an amazing opportunity to get to know each other, and to develop our survival skills! Thank you so much to the teachers who made this trip possible.
When we arrived at school, lugging our gargantuan backpacks, with all our gear strapped to them, the scent of excitement hung in the air. Some of us had been camping before, most of us hadn’t. Some of us had overpacked (like me!) and some of us hadn’t. As we waved goodbye to our parents (following many pictures), all of us were ready for an adventure.
Mrs Buxton stood on a table to give us a brief about or journey to get there. Our year would be divided into two groups for the buses, and we would stay in those groups for the rest of the trip. We then gave our bags to our amazing coach driver. Once we were all seated, we braced ourselves for the 1 hour and 15 minutes drive.
Finally, we arrived! We met our camp leader (Jacob) and played lots of fun games, like splat, before heading to our camp. On the way, Jacob told us lots of interesting facts, such as that the forests where bushcraft was located were the same size as 1-3 thousand football pitches!
When we got to the camp, we settled down in the main marquee. Jacob introduced us to our camp leaders! He then gave us a brief on how to build a fire. We divided into our tribes and set to work frantically collecting as many branches as we could! Then, we laid them out in the criss-cross pattern that Jacob had shown us, and with a spark, we had an inferno! (Ok, maybe not quite an inferno, but we were very proud of the fire that we made).
After all the hard work, we were all hungry, so we grilled hamburgers over the fire! (The teachers had fun pouring the ketchup!) It felt like we had done so much already.
Once we had finished lunch, we were introduced to our tent-mates! We were given 30 minutes to prepare our sleeping bags and mats. Then, it was time to learn how to build a shelter. We walked to another part of the forest and learned how to make a simple ‘A-frame’ for our tarpaulin to rest on. It was definitely a surprise when our camp leaders told us that we only had 45 minutes to complete the task! Hurriedly, we collected mound upon mound of fern and branches, and all our teams works super hard to complete the task on time. We collaborated incredibly, and in the end, the finished product was almost like the original design. We then headed to dinner (curry), toasted marshmallows, drank hot chocolate and solved riddles by the fire. We brushed our teeth and snuggled into our sleeping bags, ready for the next day…
Jacob woke us up early in the morning. We packed our bags and got ready, then walked to a different part of the woods to have breakfast (a delicious sandwich and cereal). Our tribes headed over to make traps, and we learnt lots of different techniques to make snares. We made our own traps, and showed them to our tribe leader. After, we had lunch in our shelters, and walked back to camp. Once we were there, we played more splat and more riddles.
All of us learnt how to use a knife, and the different types, and each carved our own wooden pencil!
We returned to school (a little muddy) after our adventure, but I made so many new friends! Thank you to everyone at bushcraft for making this trip so fun.”
