Darcy Burgess

MY FIRST 2 WEEKS AT REDDAM

By Darcy Burgess

The first week of Reddam House High School was different to any other first week of school I have ever had. The first day we had an assembly and were introduced to our teachers, Year Coordinator and our Year Tutors.

Once we had an insight into what every teacher was like we had to do a thing called a streaming test. These streaming tests were to try to identify to our new school how good we were at a certain subject. They didn't make us do a test on every single subject. No, that would be just cruel. What we did was just a test for English and Maths, therefore they can get an idea of our ability in those two subjects. That was basically all we did on our first day.

Our second day was even more of a surprise—we had the swimming carnival.
I wasn't all that excited because I'm not a great swimmer but it's still a day off school. It was a scorcher as expected but it ended up being a great day and my house Bennelong won! Which apparently is very rare. The best thing about these two days was the excitement of the 3 days afterwards and I think you know by now what it was—CAMP!

I woke early, stoked to be going to camp especially so early in the year. With my bags packed the night before it was just a normal morning routine. Mum drove me to school and we said our goodbyes. Off I walked feeling like a big boy. Camp was at Cataract Scout Park and as soon as I got to school they started loading the bus with luggage and with students.

As I walked onto the bus, a flow of cool air from the air conditioning slammed right into my face. I was instantly captivated by the camp feeling. I went and sat down with my friends, although it took us about 20 minutes until the bus actually started running. Unlike most camps I have been to this camp was only 1 hour and 30 minutes away from the school campus, which was good because I’m sure you all know how tedious a long bus ride can be.

We arrived right on the estimated time. They ran us through the procedure of getting food, which applied, for every single meal. After this we were put into our cabins, which is, as we all know, one of the most fun things about camp. I was in a cabin with a lot of my friends so there was no drama there.

My activity group (the group of people I spend the day doing activities with) consisted of none of my old primary school friends so it was a great chance to get to know some new people, which is exactly what I did. Throughout the whole camp I made a range of new friends and all the activities were great, including activities like caving and pioneering that I had never done before and I have been to a few different camps. Having camp in the first week was a brilliant idea because it is one of the best ways I think of getting to meet new people.

After having the best first week I was even more excited to get into the grand scheme of things. After the good rumours I heard from all the previous Reddam kids I couldn’t wait to see what was in store for me in the next big step of my life.