Our time at SSL

For 9 weeks of term 3, six of us from 9E went to the School for Student Leadership (SSL) Gnurad-Gundidj campus. There were 44 students at the camp and 8 different schools from across the state. There was a mix of country and city schools and one of each got paired up to make an Expo group. We were with Officer Secondary College. There were 9 learning concepts that were the foundation of the lessons we had at SSL. Those were Learning Strategies, Emotional Management, Resilience, Identity, Empathy, Respectful Relationships, Collaboration, Health & Wellbeing and Environments. The purpose of the camp was to build on these concepts and develop our leadership skills.

When living at SSL life was very different to normal. First off, we were living with 44 people all day every day, and there was rarely a time when you were alone. Everyone had a roommate which you become good friends with very quickly, or else you were in for a tough term. They paired up a kid from rural Victoria with a kid from Melbourne so that they have different backgrounds or lives. Everyone had breakfast, lunch and dinner together every day, and shared showers and toilets. There was lots of free time whilst at SSL, but always something to do. A table tennis table brought lots of people together, and a basketball half court. 

During our time at SSL, we did raft and bridge building. For each of them all we had were pine logs, a bunch of ropes and six 50 litre drums when making a raft. At bridge building, we managed to complete the task of making a jetty like construction without any of us touching the water. We also achieved making a raft, unfortunately it only got us halfway around the island before falling apart. That said, all the other groups' rafts broke instantly when it touched the water (or even before in some cases) so I’d call ours a success.

One of the activities that we did at the School for Student Leadership was going on Expo. We had two expeditions that we went on, one 2 day and one 3 day. The first was an overnight trip with day one being an 18km bike ride and then the second day was a 12km hike. The second expo was a two-night hike. We saw so many different animals, including wallabies, kangaroos, possums, koalas and especially leeches. For each of the expos we went with our Expo group which was comprised of two schools, one city and one country. We went at the same time as another expo group but didn’t really interact with them much.

Another exciting thing we did was surfing. We went twice over the 9 weeks to McGennan’s beach in Warrnambool. For a lot of people, it was their first-time surfing and it was really good to watch people have a fun time learning a new skill. I have been surfing before but I still had a great time surfing with my mates. 

Recharge day was our one day off each week. On recharge days we had the option to just hang around at school or, if you organised it beforehand, you could go off campus. Some of the awesome activities we did were mountain bike riding in the forest, going to the beach for the day and a walk around the dry lake in Terang. If you put in an order with the chefs, you could also do some cooking. Over the 9 weeks people made chocolate cookies, brownies and peppermint slice among other things. 

Emlyn Connor, Sam Day, Clare Collins, Claire Christison, Oscar Harding and Wirra Gilson