Focus On the MECS Threads
At our recent whole-school Assembly, we placed the MECS Thread of Awe Dweller at the centre of our attention. It is a Thread that asks us to notice, to wonder, and to recognise the beauty, complexity and goodness of God’s creation. It invites us to resist simply rushing past the world around us and instead become people who stop, look, listen and allow ourselves to be moved by what we encounter.
It was fantastic to see and hear how Awe can be found in so many places if we take the time to pause and wonder, one of the very best experiences that create space for this are our camps in Secondary (I may be slightly biased).
MECS students are given opportunities to step outside the routines and familiarity of school and home and experience places that can genuinely stir awe.
In Year 8, students travel to Wilsons Promontory, moving between beaches, mountains, forests and valleys. I spoke with Emily K (currently Year 9) about this and she remembered standing near the ocean and noticing how peaceful it felt, hearing only waves and wildlife and noticing how different it felt from everyday life.
Year 9 intentionally compares and contrasts City Camp with its rich Melbourne culture of art and food with Adventure Camp, where you are cooking for yourself with what you carry as you journey on a hike. Awe takes on different forms here. It can be found in creativity, architecture, people and relationships in the city, but also in the unexpected stillness of the bush. Olivia B and Summer K (currently Year 10) recall hiking in darkness and rain, emerging from the trees into a clearing and simply stopping together to look around. They described it as a moment of “sitting in awe”.
By Year 10, Discovering Country takes students further into western Victoria, including Gariwerd and Budj Bim. Here, awe is not only about spectacular landscapes. It grows through understanding. Students encounter places rich with story, culture, ingenuity and connection to our First Nations peoples, discovering that what we see becomes more meaningful when we understand something of the people, history and stories held
within it.
Yet there is another part of camp that matters enormously. These moments are experienced together.
There is something that happens when students climb the mountain together, become soaked together, laugh around a campfire together, stand quietly beneath a huge sky together, or look back from a summit and realise how far they have travelled. The experience becomes more than the activity itself. Shared challenge, conversation, laughter, tiredness, beauty and discovery combine to create something that cannot simply be recreated later in a classroom.
That is part of why camp matters so much.
We can show photographs. We can watch footage. We can explain the view, the weather, the sound of the ocean or the feeling of arriving somewhere after hours of walking. But there is an emergent quality to being there, alongside your peers, that cannot be synthesised second-hand.
When our students go to camp, they are not merely attending an excursion. They are stepping into experiences that can shape relationships, memories, gratitude and perspective. They are given the chance to encounter creation rather than simply hear about it, and perhaps, for a moment, to stop long enough to be genuinely filled with awe.
Tim Eddy
Year 9 Coordinator, Deputy Head of Secondary & Secondary Teacher
