Lead yourself into the future!

“Sam you are in the light blue team”. This was how it started…

On the 20th of February all of the grade sixes went into Metcalfe Hall, including Donvale. This was called the year six conference. All of the grade sixes were split into coloured groups to work as a team on many challenges. For instance, who can build the biggest newspaper tower, who can stack five cups without touching them, sword fights with our   fingers, and who can hold a plank the longest as a group (with a minimum of five people).

On the first challenge we had to make a huge paper tower using newspaper and masking tape.  Whoever made the tallest tower won. As the race started our team decided to make these triangular shapes and stack them using the tape. It was a bad idea so we scrunched them and stacked them when there was only one minuet left. In the end the royal blue and green team were tied and both won. Purple was there too, but their tower fell down when the winners were announced and they were disqualified. Otherwise there would’ve be a three way tie!

Next after that was the cup challenge. The aim was to stack five cups that you had using string and rubber bands. And none of your body was allowed to touch the cups. Our original idea was to stretch the rubber band and attach four pieces of string to it. Then stretch the band around one cup and place it down, and then do the same for the other cups.  It did not work, so one of our teammates came up with the idea to put the rubber bands around the cups and hold the rubber bands on the cup. We didn’t win again but that was alright because we had a blast so far.

After recess our Principal made us do a challenge that we had to try and poke each other with our index finger between shoulders to hips. It was really hard but fun. I won one and tied one before it was time to go onto the next challenge. 

The last challenge was the hardest, but since I was allergic to dust mites I couldn’t do it because we had to be on the floor. But from what it looked like it was hard. The rules stated there had to be at least five people holding the plank position. It looked really hard and light blue (our team), was in third place. But then somebody dropped when there was only five people on. We were the only team who said “we are out” and the teachers were very happy with that. Light green team won and for that they got a reward because it was the last event. Light green shared their treat with us, which were icy poles!

The year 6 conference was a lot of fun. We learned to work together in teams, we met new friends from Donvale, and we learned that “leadership is an action not a position”.