Confidence course goes up

Press, 5 June 1982, Page 2

Confidence course goes up

Craftsmen from the Army’s 3rd Field Workshop were kept busy at Hillmorton High School last week erecting this confidence course for the pupils. The project co-ordinator, Mr A. D. Gunn, an art teacher at the school, said that pupils from the school had responded well after using similar equipment at the Y.M.C.A. camp at Wainui.

A sixth-form technical drawing class, members of the school board, and staff engaged in the project * visisted the Rolleston Detention Centre where another confidence course exists. From this visit, the drawing class made designs for a possible Hillmorton course, ' and the best one was picked. The Army was approached - and asked if it would build the structure as one of its community projects. consisting of a giant Aframe with a variety of different climbing forms, the course includes a 60m-flying fox. There Were plans to add walkway /beams in; the future,' Mr Gunn said.v .' , Adaptations : had sto /be .: made;ta allow for the : age-. /groiip| likely to be ./making-;. most use ’of the course—9o per cent of the project was based on students' ideas, Mr Gunn said. Most of the timber for the project had been bought commercially, Mr Gunn said, But the M.E.D. had helped with the poles. The metalwork in the structure had . been carried out by a former pupil of the school.

Mr. Gunn estimates that the project has cost about $3OOO and has taken 18 months to reach fruition. It has been funded by two grants from the Education Department —an innovations grant and an anti-vandal grant.