At the beginning of the school year the students in year 12 (second last year of school here) were able to pick between two projects. One project involved planning and running a service of some sort, the other involved planning and running an adventure activity.
Ethan selected the adventure option, which is called the Shackleton Project. Each student is allocated an amount of funds and then as a group they plan and execute their own trip.
Their original plan was that they were going to be spending a week hiking mountains in Japan. Each student had a different leadership role involved in getting the trip organised. Ethan was the safety officer, researching the trails they would be hiking on, raising any safety concerns, liasing with authorities and teachers. Unfortunately due to the travel restrictions of Covid, that had to be cancelled. The plan then shifted to Jeju, an island off the coast of Korea. However, again due to Covid restrictions, they were asked to shift their planning to mainland-only local activities.
In the end they did adventure activities in and around Seoul. There was a day of cycling, another day of hiking and a day of surfing. Ethan took the lead on organising the day of surfing. It sounds like everything went off without a hitch.
I'm sure it would have been disappointing to not have been able to carry out the originally planned trip to Japan. However, it sounded like they still enjoyed their local activities.
On the hike.
During the cycling day.
I think Ethan has go pro footage of the surfing day. I'll see if I can get some footage to put on here.
Unfortunately the group that were organising the service project also had to disband their plans.
Erica's school camp was also cancelled this year. They were going to be cycling from Seoul to the bottom of Korea over multiple days. Erica was not disappointed to miss out on the cycling.
Clara would have gone on her first overnight school camp (at 7 years old! - does that seem young to anybody else?). They still had a form of camp. But just did local activities each day, then sent the kids home each night.
We're hoping things might ease a bit for the next school year, but also won't be surprised if it's still too difficult for the school to run camps as normal. In ordinary times Erica would be going to Japan next year, and Clara would be going to a local camp in Korea. There is no camp for Ethan in Year 13. The school also normally runs optional paid-for camps such as ski trips, surf trips and rock climbing.
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