I mentioned in an earlier post, the contingency plan is one of the most vital things to have as part of your overall excursion management plan. I can't stress enough how vital this is, as well as the ability to be flexible with it. Often when things are going wrong, there's usually not just a simple straight forward option for plan B. So it's good to have plan C & D up your sleeve just in case, to ensure you’re never cornered into thinking there’s only one alternative!

The reality of taking kids anywhere is that things happen. No matter how well you plan, something can come out of left field, like bad weather, vehicle breakdowns or random acts of God, which can often be hard to predict and can escalate quickly. Recently we had one such program where every which way we turned it was one chaotic weather front after another. It got to the point where we had multiple contingency plans for every single day! If one didn't work or was unfeasible, then we were ready to with the next one! Throughout the program we were constantly using C, D & E. Whilst there’s no real value going into the details of each and every plan that we had to work around and how or why they each did or didn’t work, the key issue here is about the ability to change and adapt, which’s the most important thing.

If you ever end up reading serious incident reports into accidents on excursions, there’s a pattern that emerges each time. It usually starts out with a poor decision being made about weather, an activity, the skill level of a group or leadership abilities. This is usually followed by a second poor decision, which starts the unravelling process towards the ultimate major trauma that occurs. What often becomes glaringly obvious when reading the report is that there was no contingency plan! So what happens if things don’t go to plan? Well, don’t force the issue and try to make everything work for the sake of it! Regroup, rethink and adapt. This will let you and your group do another activity safely and not end up facing an inquiry.

When planning your excursion and assessing the risk profile, make sure you build in a Plan B & C if things don’t work out. Then if you have to enact a secondary plan, be flexible in its application and simply cancel if need be. At the end of the day the safety and well being of the group, far exceeds the need to just do an activity!

​This week is simply about an awesome teaching moment, which led to such an awesome feeling inside! It's why I actually love this job so much! The awesome moment and great feeling was triggered by a single smile!

With the rains and floods of last week having subsided and the program returning to 'normal' it's time for some mountain biking! A frustrating phenomenon is becoming increasing pronounced. I noticed it a few years ago and sadly it's getting worse. That's he fact that kids aren't learning to ride a bike! Even though we run mountain biking as part of our program, until now, we've been limited to one day per camp. If a student couldn't ride, then there simply wasn't the time nor the resources to teach the non-riders anything. If we tried, it would be at the cost of everyone else, which is unfair to the other kids who want to challenge and push themselves. So we bought some bikes for the campus.

In anticipation of the upcoming mountain bike activity for our year 9 students (14-15 years old), we offered one on one sessions for any boys who weren't confident about riding. I had one taker and one helper! I kitted them out with helmets and gloves then ran through all the safety checks on the bike before getting started. The success rate for riding with non-riders at this age is fairly low. Not because of lack of skills, or ability, it's the lack of attention span to stick with something longer than 5mins, a sad reflection on society and parenting on both counts. However, with any skill, it takes work and persistence and that's what makes all the difference.

Throughout the morning it was a combination of pushing the bike, falling off the bike, running over my toes, running over his friend's toes and generally messy wobbles that looked like they might go somewhere, but then ended up with him laying on the ground time and time again.

The great thing was though, was that this didn't phase him. I kept working with him on balance, body position and movement and these falls became less frequent and the front wheel lurched around less violently each time. We had a break for lunch and then another session in the afternoon of class work, before heading back out to the oval to try again. It was the same result, front wheel everywhere, feet on the ground more than on the pedals and seemingly no balance. Suddenly, like the switching on of a light, it changed! He was on the bike, the front wheel was stable, he was pedalling! He was riding the bike!!!

He turned the bike towards me and that's when I saw it, this beaming smile across the boy's face. He was up and riding! He'd done it!!! It was an awesome sight to see and it felt so good from my point of view that he'd stuck to it and got there! Whilst this sort of thing happens every day as a teacher, it's often quite subtle, especially in the classroom, but out here, it was there for everyone to see! A great end to the day for a boy who had just never had the opportunity to try riding a bike until now!

​This week’s kinda short and to the point. We’ve been flooded in down south of Sydney on one of the Yr 9 programs and thankfully, we’ve been flooded in in a good way! How can we been flooded in in a good way I hear you ask?! Well last year, we got flooded to the point we had to evacuate from the campus, then I ended up sleeping on a gym matt for the night (not comfy at all)!

This time, we’re all ok, we’re still on site and the right decisions have been made about changes to activities. We’d planned for canoeing on Saturday, then abseiling and archery on Sunday. However, none of these could be safely run with the continuous deluge of rain we’ve been having and it’s put our upcoming 3 day expedition in doubt as well.
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​We’d been watching this weather front for days on the Bureau of Meteorology, so it was no surprise when it hit yesterday. This is why regular weather checks and updates are so important for safely planning and implementing activities. It reduces your risk and can save you massive amounts of time dealing with bad situations you don’t need to be in.

​So with endless rain falling, roads blocked and floods surrounding us, we’ve stayed indoors, taught some lessons. Now everyone’s learnt something, had fun and are safe and dry. The bottom line this week is that even though sometimes taking students out in adverse weather conditions can be character building, in situations like this it’s not! Therefore, changing plans and rethinking activities is a vital part of your risk management and operational management strategy to ensure you keep everyone safe from seriously dangerous weather conditions.


​Oh and I finally watched Tron! Awesome movie.