'Serendipity' primadonna Liliana Falsen Villar sings about being left ...

H i g h S c h o o l N E W S
Silver International Award
30 Grade 11 students have registered this year
for the Silver International Award at ISS. The
Award is an international version of the long
running Duke of Edinburgh Award from the
UK and is intended to push students to get
involved in improving a skill, doing physical
exercise and volunteering.
All students taking part signed up before
the end of last year and received a booklet to
complete which helps them log their activities
over the course of the year.
In addition to these three facets, the students
have to complete an ‘expedition’ where
they plan their route, camp and cook for
themselves. The expedition is designed to
foster leadership skills and help the students
to work as a group as well as trying to get
them a little outside their comfort zone in a
safe and controlled environment.
The expedition is built up to with a couple of
practice activities.
1. Day walk on Rennesøy
On August 27th all 30 students completed
a 14 km hike across Rennesøy, walking in
groups supervised by a teacher and finding
their way across the island. The point of
the walk was to make sure that they could
all work as a team, that they practiced their
map skills and to see if their equipment was
suitable.
Only one group got lost and they were able
to pretend that they had taken an alternative
route to see some wildlife. One group actually
rescued a lost lamb and took it back to its
mother in a neighboring field.
The teachers were all really impressed by the
attitude of the groups, everyone was very
positive and well prepared and all completed
the walk without any problems.
2. Overnight camping trip near Øyjuvsbu
in Settesdal
On 21st and 22nd of October, 28 of the
students took part in a camping trip in the
Øyjuvsbu area. They organised all their own
personal equipment, sorted out tents and
sleeping arrangements and planned their
menus to be cooked on their own stoves.
School was able to help some of them out
with cooking equipment but the intention
was that they would solve all their own
problems rather than be pandered to by us.
Experience has shown that the majority rarely
listen to advice until it matters, so the point
of the trip was for them to find out how hard
it is to go camping in wet, cold conditions
and learn from their mistakes. They were all
given all the information that they needed
but only a few actually heeded it completely.
Unknown to them there was always the
safety of a nearby hytte if anybody really had
a problem or if the weather deteriorated.
The night before we left there was a fair bit
of snow up in the hills around Øyuvsbu
and with the altitude around our camping
spot being around 1100m, we were met by
icy roads, lots of snow and no visible path.
With the help of GPS we reached the lake
where we would be camping and when given
the choice about whether to sleep inside the
obvious hytte or to camp in the snow, all the
students chose to camp. With one forgotten
tent, one group ended up inside the hytte
for the night while everyone else spent the
evening camping and cooking in the snow.
Some of the students came down to the hytte
for the evening but some just stayed out all
night.
The following day we headed out for a walk
around the lake but with the snow all melted,
the ground even more boggy than usual
and some of the rivers too deep to cross we
eventually retreated to the waiting bus and
headed back home to Stavanger.
Over the next few days the students
completed an online reflection on the trip
and these were some of the things that they
said:
• What did you learn?
• What advice would you give another
student doing this trip next year?
• What was the best thing that happened?
More information can be found at: http://
www.intaward.org/ and http://www.dofe.
org/
Thanks to Mr Durok, Ms Siddall and Ms
Bedard for Rennesøy and a big thanks to
Ms Huber and Mr Davies for their help in
Øyjuvsbu.
Simon Taylor
16 · The Informer 23 November 2011 www.isstavanger.no