YSS Newsletter 2026 Term 3 Week 9

Throughout Terms Two and Three, our students have had the privilege of taking their learning beyond the classroom and onto the tracks, beaches and bushland of Wadandi Boodja through our walking program, facilitated by Cape to Cape Explorer Tours.

From ocean tracks to inland trails, these walks are much more than time spent outdoors. They give our children the opportunity to know the place in which they are growing—to observe it through the seasons, meet its challenges, wonder about what they encounter and gradually develop a relationship of care and responsibility towards Country.

In many ways, the journey from Class One to Class Six can be seen in the way the children walk, observe and understand the world around them.

In Class One: first we experience

For the Class One child, the world is encountered deeply through the senses and imagination.

We walk. We notice. We listen.

We feel the wind coming from the ocean and hear water moving over stones. We discover a tiny treasure tucked amongst the branches and stand beneath an ancient Marri tree looking upwards. We notice the first brilliant yellow flowers appearing after the winter rains and then, seemingly all at once, the bush beginning to burst into colour.

These experiences do not remain on the track. They come back to school with us and become part of our classroom learning.

This term, our walks have woven beautifully into our Main Lesson work around Djilba, the Noongar season of conception and first spring. Rather than learning about the changing season only through words or pictures, the children are experiencing it happening around them.

We have watched the yellow blossoms emerge, discovered wildflowers amongst the bush, noticed birds and nests and experienced the changing weather. These observations are then recalled through oral storytelling, conversation, movement, drawing, painting and writing.

What is first experienced through the feet, hands, eyes and ears is later given form in the classroom.

One particularly special moment came during a walk at Gracetown. Beneath a dark sky, a rainbow appeared over the ocean. Soon afterwards, the children heard the story of the Waagul as part of our Main Lesson work. Having so recently stood together and watched a rainbow meet the sea, the image was already alive within them. We then carried that experience into our painting.

This is one of the gifts of our walking program.

The experience comes first. The learning grows from it.

Growing on the track

There is another kind of learning taking place as we walk.

There are sandy hills to climb, rocks to negotiate, long stretches of track and days when the weather asks a little more of us. Children carry their own belongings, keep pace with a group, wait for one another and offer encouragement when somebody finds a section difficult.

They learn that reaching the destination is something we do together.

Through these experiences, teamwork, resilience, independence, responsibility and care for others develop naturally. The landscape offers genuine challenges and, with them, genuine opportunities for growth.

As the children grow, so too does what can be asked of them.

The Class One child is at the beginning of this journey, learning to notice, to wonder, to persevere and to develop a relationship with the Country through which they walk.

Six years later, those foundations remain, but something has changed.

In Class Six: observation deepens

In their final year of Primary School, bushwalking continues to meet the students’ growing consciousness by providing essential and deeper links to the curriculum.

Observation remains at the core of the science curriculum, but these observations become more refined as the students’ abilities to make sense of their environment and articulate their findings also grow.

As Lisa reflects:

“As we revisited previous walks or explored further, we wondered about our sensory experience, considering the why and how things are so.”

In Class Six, students observe phenomena, review them and go deeper in discussion to explain the reasons for what they have encountered. In this way, they develop creative and independent thinking skills which lead towards sound judgement.

Their study of geology was enriched by the opportunity each week to be out on Country, having first-hand experiences of the ancient rock formations that characterise the Leeuwin-Naturaliste Ridge.

From learning about the earth’s history and the unique elements of this ancient bedrock, the students observed the granitic gneiss and came to understand the processes behind the lines of quartz crystals found stretching along the capes—described beautifully by Lisa as “streaks of sparkling storylines.”

With expert guides and magnifying glasses, they searched and studied, compared and contrasted the big three: granite, gneiss and limestone.

As Lisa concludes:

“As I reflect I wonder how lucky we are to expand beyond the walls of the classroom and school boundaries, to our most rich source of learning: Wadandi Boodja.”