A day full of fun and educational activities for the whole school. Written by Saira, Year 9.
Pillar days allow us to do things we would not typically do on a school day, and they have a different theme each year.
In year 9, the theme this year was 'Humanities Day'. This day consisted of three exciting activities: the first being 'Orienteering in Albany Park'. Orienteering is formally defined as a group of sports that require navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain whilst moving at speed. For this activity, the teachers printed blank sheets with a country's flag and a number and then discretely hid them around Albany Park. We were given a map with numbers to locate these blank sheets alongside every country's flag with their names beside them so we could record what flag we found with the respective number. We were put into teams which helped us to be able to work together and adapt our ideas effectively and efficiently.
The second activity was 'The Trade Game', which consisted of six groups with a country name battling to create a successful economy by trading valuable resources with the other countries. Each group was given a different number of resources, and our job was to create shapes with a specific value on the board that was constantly changing to reflect the variation in inflation rates. This meant that everyone was persistently thinking about what their best options were as it could affect their profit in the long run. Again, this challenged our decision-making and reaction time, and time management was a key factor in being successful.
The last activity was to create a 'family shield'/'coat of arms' that represented our own family and us. To help us understand what a family shield was, we had a short lesson learning the history behind them as well as learning about which teachers in our school had a coat of arms. In this activity, we were able to express how we see ourselves and think about the things that make us who we are.
Overall, we had a great day exercising our ability to work together.
Written by Saira