IDEALS and Cadets

What is IDEALS?

By Elora Twyford, Year 10, Plenty Campus

IDEALS is a program that you get the opportunity to start in Year 9 for The Ridgeway Campus students, and in Year 10 at Plenty Campus, which replaces cadets on Tuesday afternoons. The IDEALS program is focused on looking into yourself and who you are, as well as helping your community and school thrive. We do a mix of discussions in the classrooms, and practical activities outside of school, learning all kinds of skills in community service, and learning about various different areas that are relevant to everyday life. For example, we look a lot into sustainability at school and in the local community, such as discussing what the school already does for sustainability, and what we can do in the future. Outside of the programs in the classroom, we often go to local Whittlesea City community sites to help out at their gardens and facilities or go out into the city and take part in team building activities. While activities were restricted due to the pandemic, we spent a lot of time in school cooking meals for the Whittlesea Food Collective, a charity that donates food to people in need in the local community. We also spent time helping restore the little bean, the School’s coffee cart that got shut down due to lockdown in previous years. 

In my experience in the IDEALS program this year, I’ve found it really fulfilling both contributing to my local community, and my school, as well as taking part in interesting class discussions. 

Being Senior Cadet Under Officer

Zoe Black, Year 11, Plenty Campus

After being granted the role of Senior CUO on promotions of 2022, I was beyond excited to be able to lead a cadet unit and be able to work with others to plan out the schedule for cadets and be able to run an afternoon of cadets. I had to quickly adapt to being responsible of the whole cadet unit at both The Ridgeway Campus and Plenty Campus , however thankfully I am sharing the role with Bethany Ryan from The Ridgeway Campus as the Senior CUO for her campus. Currently at both Plenty Campus and The Ridgeway Campus we are planning our first camp as leaders called Bivouac in which we plan activities, sites and so much more. As much as this has been so much work in the planning it as been so enjoyable to learn and follow through the mistakes I have made as Senior CUO to be able make cadets better and be able to put the best camp all the cadets especially those who are going to be experiencing their first camp this coming December.