Outdoor and Adventure

Essential to the goal of educating young women and men of character is immersing students in real-world activities. Throughout the Primary and Secondary Years, students can explore their adventurous side through camps, outdoor education, international trips and cultural tours.

Adventure builds character; it encourages students to reach personal goals, develop a sense of self-reliance, responsibility and resilience.

Adventure builds collaboration skills; it implores students to work as a team and be mindful of the world around them. By fostering cultural and environmental awareness, students understand the power and responsibility of their own actions, while having an amazing time.

International Trips

At the core of our ethos is Global Citizenship, and a wide range of international trips on offer supports the students to develop a deeper understanding of their world.

International trips are aimed at giving students the confidence to respond to a variety of learning situations outside the classroom. Some international experiences are annual service traditions, others are one-off opportunities. Approximately 10 – 12 international trips take place each year. In recent years these have included:

• trips to NASA
• battlefields tour to Europe
• a Cricket Development Tour in the UK
• a Netball Deveopment Tour in New Zealand
• an International Debating Championship in Malaysia
• Round Square International Conferences
• the annual Cambodia Service Project
• Year 9 Service Learning Trip

Cultural Exchanges

Continuing with the theme of Global Citizenship, Ivanhoe Grammar School offers reciprocal Regional Cultural Visits for Year 8 and Year 10 students. Ivanhoe is a registered student exchange organisation in its own right.

Students are placed in homestay or boarding house arrangements where they will be immersed in diverse living situations either in Australia or overseas. As a reciprocal arrangement, the student is then given the opportunity to act as a host to an international or inter-state visitor.

This is such a wonderful experience for students to develop an appreciation of different cultures and races, but also a deeply personal exchange between two cultural counterparts. It is an opportunity for students to live out Maya Angelou’s famous words: “We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”

Outdoor Education

Students experience adventure in a local environment through an exciting mix of adventure activities in a range of regional and urban environments. This program encourages students to take risks in safe environments so they can learn to become accountable for their own actions.

The exciting Outdoor Education program develops outdoor and environmental skills through activities such as bushwalking, camping, bushcraft, sea-kayaking, rafting, mountain biking, cross country ski touring and snow camping, canoeing abseiling, rock climbing and caving. These activities are carried out in natural settings: forests, mountains, rivers, alpine, coastal and urban environments.

The Outdoor Education program fully supports the curriculum at every level and is conducted by fully trained professional outdoor educators in conjunction with specialist providers.

Camps

Year Level and specialist camps are conducted from Year 4 through to Senior Years. Camps are designed to support curricular and co-curricular learning by applying concepts to real life situations. Camps provide students with the opportunity to build and extend their social circles, work on teamwork and resilience and take their newfound skills back to the classroom. Examples of recent camps include: Year 4 and 5 Land and Water Program at Angahook, Year 7 Teamwork and Problem Solving Camp and the Year 10 Retreat.

Along with Year Level camps, sports and academic teams may undertake camps to develop skills or compete in inter-school or inter-state competitions.