The Tanglin Gippland Experience

The Tanglin Gippsland experience is a 5-week programme, featuring a 34-day residential, and 1 day of reflection. The residential is at the Tanglin Gippsland campus, in the small town of Rawson, which is located near the Baw Baw plateau in East Gippsland. The trip takes place with four Y9 groups visiting the campus throughout the school year. Each cohort has varying weather conditions, however, no cohort has to experience the sweltering Australian summer, as even though Rawson is 500m above sea level, the heat is still too intense for hiking, and it is the school holidays in SG, and Australia. 

The trip combines interactive learning, with 4 days of fieldwork, and 13 days of hiking/ camping. It also limits screen time to essentially zero, as students are not allowed their phones, and while iPads are used for lessons, it is very rare, and often not used for long.  

Hiking/camping expeditions  

Every weekend (Tuesday and Wednesday to avoid interaction with the public), the students go hiking/ camping, with each week increasing in expedition length - with a one day, two day, two 3 day expeditions, with the whole thing leading up to the big 4 day hike - the most challenging, where students have to carry all of their equipment, food, water, and clothes, in bags weighing around 15 Kg, with three different difficulties.

The students choose these by writing on a piece of paper “more or less”, to decide how much of a challenge they want. They are then taken in by the teachers. The three difficulties are; more challenging, less challenging, and somewhere in the middle. The middle group is a mix of people who chose “more” and “less”, and is chosen randomly. The most challenging group often does the most distance, with uphill and downhill, whilst the middle group does less distance, and finally the least challenging, doing the least distance. However, each group has their own different challenges. For example, the least challenge may do 30 kilometres with lots of hard uphill, while the most challenging does 50 kilometres, but may have easier uphill. The location of the hikes depends on the season, as the mountains get to cold in the winter. Students may be driven out 2 hours to east Gippsland for the winter cohorts, but in cohort three, the changeover between summer and autumn means that the mountains are at the good temperature for hiking, and so students attempt the 4 peak challenge - a challenge which includes summiting the 4 peaks (Baw Baw, Erica, Philack, and Gwinear), which is also the 4 house groups on campus.

School Life (life on campus)  

When the students aren’t on a hike or expedition, they are on the campus, getting on with there everyday lives. and although it might seem like just a “ 5 week holiday” students still have school everyday, with five different lessons, followed by house time, and various afternoon activities. Due to the limited number of staff, the students only do the core subjects. These include; maths, English, geography, science, art, and languages. Students are also responsible for cleaning their own rooms, making their beds, setting tables for lunch and dinner, and washing the dishes after every meal. When students have free time, they can either hang out in the common room, or go outside to the field to play football, volleyball, cricket and other sports. However, the students can’t stay in their dorms, as the dorms are only purposely for night, and there are no chairs or desks, to encourage socialising. The students receive breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as a morning and afternoon snack, which are all eaten in the dining hall. All of the lessons have some interactive learning, involving the Australian bush. For example, in geography, students have 2 days of fieldwork where they investigate rivers in person, and do a survey on the local town of Walhalla. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Tanglin Gippsland experience is one that teaches students independent living, lets them apply their knowledge from their lessons, and is a good opportunity to experience the beauty of the Aussie bush whilst carrying everything they need to survive. Nearly all of the students that experience it say it is a once in a liftime experience, and that they would go back if they had the opportunity to.