In the middle of winter, the Yr 9 Cove Program is facing clear yet cold starts at 7:25am on Wednesday mornings. It is even more essential to stand together and support each other physically through exercise in nature, but also socially and emotionally to look after one another and grow the connection within the Yr 9 cohort.

This Yr 9 Cove class has grown by six new members in Term 3 and we welcomed them on Wednesday (25/7) to the early morning program. We did this with our own welcome ceremony with an activity that invited students to move in two circles, where they positively agreed to read out statements such as ‘do you feel well connected to your cohort’ or ‘are you ready to welcome and support the new members'.

After that, we split into groups and rotated between morning sun rays yoga and a bush run to the nearby large cave and beyond the banks of Scots Creek. In only a few weeks, the Yr 9 cohort will be canoeing down this creek into Fig Tree Bay to learn about canoeing and paddling skills before setting off on their Shoalhaven River and Art camp early in term 4.

The Yr 9s are now a very large cohort and it will be great to see how they can grow as individuals and as a group in the coming months, culminating in the great Cove Character Challenge in term 4. This event will see them away from school for a full day, an amazing group challenge in which they need to work tightly in groups solving complex tasks around the city.

Jonas Stoebe
PDHPE Teacher & Co-curricular Organiser