The Sir Peter Blake Trust have been working with our Year 7/8 boys for 3 years now using VR headsets to show them the marine life in NZ. The trust is about giving students in low decile areas opportunities to experience our natural marine and wildlife through VR videos.
This term the Blake Foundation have upped the ante and given our Year 7/8 boys real life experiences with marine and wildlife. Our Year 7 boys were taken out to the Hyundai Marine Centre and taught various aspects of sailing including practical lessons on the water. Mr Anderton’s environmental group were very lucky as they were taken off to an Explorers camp around Leigh area. During the camp the students were lucky enough to handle marine life and snorkel for kina (which they ate on the beach). They also came across all sorts of fish and a few stingrays as well as seeing Dolphins! On land they travelled into the forest reserve and with the Blake personnel playing bird calls on their phones they got to witness all sorts of native birds approach them as they sat still. In the evening the quietly went into the bush to see kiwis in the wild. Their final day was learning to surf followed by a celebration lunch at the Sawmill restaurant.
We are very grateful to the Blake Foundation staff who provided such an excellent camp this week for our students. Only one of our young men had been to Goat Island before, one had previously snorkelled, and two others had surfed. Our students had experiences that were well outside their comfort zone, and they revelled giving things a go! The instructors from various organisations were very impressed with how well behaved and keen our students were with activities
