☰ Bushcraft: A report by Amelie & Keya

Bushcraft: A report by Amelie & Keya

Posted on: June 14th 2019

Bushcraft: A report by Amelie & Keya

Forms 5 and 6 recently enjoyed their residential trip to Bushcraft. Read a report by Amelie and Keya:

The week before half term, the oldest creatures of Norfolk House (Form 5 and Form 6) enjoyed a residential trip to Bushcraft. After a long (but fun) coach journey, we arrived at Bushcraft. We were greeted by our camp leader, Harry, who gave us each numbers so that we could have number offs (where we say our numbers in order as fast as we can so that they know if anyone is missing). He walked us to camp showing us the portaloos, the yurt and our tents.   

After a delicious lunch of vegetable curry in the yurt, it was time to start our first activity, with our new tribes, fire building! Harry showed us many ways to make fire such as:

- Using matches
- Using a firelighter
- Cotton wool and vaseline
- Chemical reaction with iron filings and glycerine
- Rubbing a battery on wire wool

Then we went to a place with lots and lots of dead wood. That was where we built our fires (my tribe used the chemical reaction). We then all sat around the fire and decided what our tribe name would be. Amelie’s was called the Grizzlys, Keya’s was called Metal Sheep and the other one was called Armadillo Army. We then came up with a backstory and performed them to the other tribes.

After a quick snack, we entered the nearby forest to make shelters. The only man-made materials we had were a tarpaulin, a rope, tent pegs and a few pieces of paracord, the rest we foraged for. We used pine leaves on the side to insulate our shelters and placed grass beneath where we were going to sleep. The Grizzlys folded the tarpaulin and used it as a floor. Later on, we decorated the shelters. The Grizzlys used pinecones to create a bear claw and Metal Sheep found a skull!

All of the Form 6 girls slept outside on the first night and it was very warm because we were all squished together.

In the morning we were woken up at about 5:00 by the sunrise but we were supposed to wake up at 7:30!

“It was really enjoyable and fun we all got to try new things!” - Imogen T, Form 6 pupil

“We all stepped out of our comfort zone” - Keya S, Form 6 pupil

“My favourite part of bushcraft was when me, Holly and Leo battled for a fallen tree. Holly was on my team and we had so much fun!” - Amelie B, Form 6 pupil

Later that day, we learnt archery, we also tried tomahawk throwing (axe throwing) and archery combat, where we played with arrows with foam tips (so they wouldn’t hurt if we got hit) and tried to shoot each other. Mr Jowett really enjoyed hitting India with a diagonal headshot (we had helmets just in case).

We also had "Tribe’s got talent" and there were some really great acts in there like when Amelie, Holly, Alanna, Eva, Emily and Leonard did a crazy walrus dance. It scored very low but we did get a 10 from Mr Smith (David Walliams).

On Wednesday, we did the SOS challenge where Mr Ashton, Mr Smith and Mr Jowett pretended to have been in a plane crash. We had to do first aid and get them away from the crash.

Our final activity was the bushcraft challenge which consisted of three rounds:

- Leave no trace of the shelters
- Make a fire
- Burn a piece of paracord

Metal Sheep won and we all had so much fun!

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