Year 7 Camp

Our annual Thornbury High School Year 7 camp was held from Wednesday 4th March to Friday 6th March at Lake Dewar Lodge in the bushland above the beautiful Werribee Gorge. 

As always, camp is a buzz of activity and energy, with the 2026 version no exception. 170 Year 7’s descending into a quiet campground ready for a myriad of outdoor activities across three days makes for a chaotic environment.

Activities included canoeing and kayaking (with options for jetty jumping), hiking through the Werribee gorge and for the thrill seekers, there was the flying fox that flew the students through the middle of the gorge (approximately 25 meters off the ground and 280 meters long). Archery, adventure tunneling and raft building had students putting their heads together and working out solutions to various problems, while also potentially ending up in the lake again.

Our students worked wonderfully well as classes, with a camp-long competition running based around participation, helping others and teamwork. Groups also had nightly competitions, including a group hand-shake comp and a lip-synching comp to a song of their choice. Congratulations to all the students for their efforts across the camp and in particular our individual award winners - Fraser Walls, Sienna Sandercock, Harrison Raftopoulos, Aryana Lau and Nora Madden - all of whom showed great enthusiasm, care for their peers and support for all students around them. 

On behalf of the Year 7 team - I would also like to personally thank the 17 staff members who attended the 2026 camp. Managing this large number of students and ensuring everyone is having a good time, are included and safe and connecting with peers is a huge task and the camp wouldn’t run as smoothly as it did without all the efforts of our amazing staff members! Thank you all!

Pieter Oosterloo, Georgia Stavrakis and Claudia Giarrusso

Year 7 Team