Outdoor Education Beyond the Classroom
St Rita’s College hosts an Outdoor Education Program for Years 5 to 9.
St Rita’s commitment to Outdoor Education is carefully calibrated to give students the opportunity to participate in team activities that develop and enhance resilience and collaboration, alongside their organisational and leadership abilities. Working in partnership with one of the most respected Queensland-based providers of Outdoor Education, QCCC, a sequential approach has been constructed for students.
Facilitated by professional outdoor learning instructors the program purposefully engages our students in direct experience and focused reflection in order to increase knowledge, develop skills, clarify values and develop people's capacity to contribute to their communities, reinforcing that lessons are not necessarily all learnt in a classroom. There are also key references to Australia's national narrative and the uniqueness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture.
Our Year 6 students are offered the award-winning Canberra Excursion which is operated as part of the Parliament and Civics Education Rebate program which is the students camp for the year, facilitated by educational travel experts, Student Horizons.
Year 5
Students attend the mountain top property at QCCC Tamborine, which enjoys views over Brisbane and Moreton Bay. The focus of the Year 5 Camp and activities is getting to know each other and developing confidence, independence and resilience. Being the introduction to our sequential Outdoor Education program, the students participate in activities such as glider possum, archery, tree climb, GPS challenge and Wilderness Explorers. Students spend both nights in residential cabin accommodation.
Year 6
Just like camp, the Year 6 Canberra excursion also gives our young learners further opportunity to develop personal and social capabilities including independence, resilience, confidence and problem solving. The trip is aligned with the Australian Curriculum for Year 6 and supports learning curriculum requirements by covering civics and citizenship, history and heritage, science, the environment, art and culture. Students get to visit national attractions such as Parliament House, the Australian National Museum, The Australian War Memorial, Questacon, Australian Institute of Sport and the National Electoral Education Centre. Furthermore, they get to spend a day Jindabyne learning about the Snowy Hydro Scheme and visiting a local ski field for the morning to experience snow.
Year 7
The focus of the Year 7 camp and activities is community building and reciprocity. Students attend the Rainforest Campus of QCCC Mapleton, close to one of the traditional venues of the Bunya Festival, the largest gathering of Aboriginal people prior to colonisation. Incorporating a range of outdoor education and cultural awareness activities at Mapleton’s Triballink Aboriginal Activity Centre, the students spend one night in residential accommodation and experience a one-night introduction to camping. The aim of the camp is to build relational proximity between peers and teachers, have fun together and build personal and social capability through beginner level activities such as the flying fox, canoeing, bushwalking and abseiling.
Year 8
To build on the camping exposure from the previous year, our Year 8 camp shifts to QCCC Tamborine for a two-night campout experience at their mountain top property which enjoys views over Brisbane and Moreton Bay. With an emphasis on self-confidence, resilience and the value of supportive relationships, the students spend both nights camping in tents where the activities are focussed on critical and creative thinking. Activities include Giant Ladder, climbing wall, team initiatives, the stranded Survivor Challenge and a Bush Master Chef activity where the students apply bush camping skills to cater for themselves one night.
Year 9
In Year 9, students the QCCC property at Cobb & Co Nine Mile Camping Ground for a Survival Skills camp. Here they will be challenged, both individually and in groups, to practise basic bushcraft and survival skills. Sequencing through a series of reward challenges, this camp teaches shelter building, campfire skills and cooking, navigation, basic first aid and survival skills. The focus is on team building, overcoming obstacles, enhancing communication skills and developing leadership capacity, including a reflection on the organising principles of Australia's original inhabitants, to build from the experiences of previous camps.