Our passion for travelling

Warrumbungles and beyond

In 2018 Cecil Hills High School was looked at as a model of high performance by The Centre of Excellence and Evaluation for our promising student wellbeing statistics. I believe this is due to the extremely strong welfare team that I have been lucky to be a part of for six years (under the guidance of Mrs Randall) that  Year 12 have had the opportunity to be involved in so many initiatives. It is days like Mother’s Day breakfasts, the retreat day to the Royal National Park, International Women’s Day and Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea that make students feel important and connected with school, contributing to their strong sense of wellbeing. So to Alison, Paul and Denise, for all your efforts to support our year group’s strong sense of student wellbeing, I say thank you.

I realised quite early on that Year 12 shared my passion for travelling and doing crazy things. It all started in Year 9 when you trusted in my enthusiasm to camp in the middle of Sydney Harbour on Cockatoo Island for two nights. We cooked our own food, walked for hours, raced around the city in ferries, buses and trains in our pursuit to shove ourselves in freezers, pile up on playground slides, terrify window shoppers with our front window displays and search for celebrities. It was your willingness to be part of the team in those challenges that I realised that you all loved feeling like you belonged…… even when I was ready to disown you if you dared to get out of your tent. I will never forget sitting at a picnic table conducting surveillance with Mrs Vella at 3:30am on guard, looking for any tent escapees. We sat there in the freezing cold sipping hot water until the sun rose. And that is…… the  life of a teacher on camp!

So I thought I would get you back in Year 11 and 12 by returning the favour of exhaustion. In year 11,  I made you walk 12.5km up a mountain in the Warrumbungles, 6 hours out of Sydney but you never complained and loved the sense of achievement when you did it. So I then dragged you to far North Queensland and told you that I was getting up for a beach sunrise on day 2 at Cape Tribulation in the Daintree Rainforest. Ms Sahid, Mr Collins and I were sure that we would have the beach to ourselves, but sure enough, in the dark, Year 12 students, one by one, started emerging from their rainforest bungalows half asleep with charged phones and cameras not wanting to miss the sunrise. It was times like this, that made me feel special, shocked that it really was possible to get teenagers up before the wake of dawn to hang out with their teachers always wanting to be part of something special. So parents, when they say they cannot wake up, it is a lie!