Does Kahunui Improve Academic Success?

Does Kahunui improve academic success?
 
St Cuthberts College offers a one month long, off-the-grid, transformative outdoors education camp for Year 10 students in the Waiotahi Valley. Girls are separated into nine intakes, all leaving throughout different times of the year. Each girl experiences being completely disconnected from electronic devices, communal living, the outdoors, and building close friendships with other girls in their year. Students live in houses of eight, where they are all responsible for cleaning, cooking, and managing their daily routines. Kahunui’s purpose is to build resilience, independence, and interpersonal skills through outdoor education. 

There’s a noticeable feeling every month when the Year 10 intakes return home from Kahunui. Within a week, teachers begin noticing and saying the same thing: “They’re different. There’s been a shift.” Kahunui is marketed as an outdoor education programme at St Cuthberts College, not as an academic programme. Despite this, according to research conducted at the University of Otago, the month-long experience has been essential in reshaping young girls’ identities, equipping them with confidence and key learning behaviours that continue long after they return to school. Kahunui may truly be one of the most academically progressive programmes at St Cuthberts, despite it not appearing academic at all. 

Kahunui isn’t just a camp that’s thrown together with fun and rogaine maps. It is a purposefully designed education strategy. Kahunui’s key focus is on developing perseverance and resilience. This is made clear by the research conducted at the University of Otago. Kahunui builds on girls’ strengths and challenges stereotypical gender expectations. Staff at both Kahunui and St Cuthbert’s have reported “significantly altered social dynamics” when girls return to school, affecting their attitude towards learning. Academic success relies not just on intelligence, but also on confidence, independence and resilience. Every educator will tell you this. Kahunui isn’t deviating from learning, it is the foundation of it. 

Girls develop an increase in self-belief, improved problem solving and critical thinking skills, greater independence, and strong relationship and collaboration skills. These are indicators of academic accomplishment that schools spend years trying to develop in workshops and assemblies, yet nothing truly parallels the impact of Kahunui,. When girls return from Kahunui, teachers observe that they participate more, take greater academic risks, and manage themselves effectively. They also show an increased amount of eagerness and willingness to learn and attempt difficult tasks. This directly influences learning behaviors once back at school. One hundred percent of Year 10 girls at St Cuthbert’s complete Kahunui. This means that this academic strategy benefits every student in that year's level, not just the sport focussed girls or the girls who love the outdoors, but everyone. In a school that is focused on academic achievement and progression, Kahunui enhances the intangible qualities that make measurable achievement and performance possible.

A girl I interviewed, Emily Smith said she  “realised she was capable of more than she thought,” a sentiment shared among many girls who have attended Kahunui over the years. Another spoke about learning to trust herself, which is a skill that no exam can measure, yet all learning requires. Anyone who has been to Kahunui understands the experience of cooking dinner and burning half of it, or panicking after getting lost while leading a group of girls to their campsite for the night. In those moments, fear turns into questions. “What do I do now?” and“How can I fix this?” These are the moments when every girl realises that she can do more than she ever believed. 

The memories made at Kahunui are all lessons. The girl who climbed a track she initially believed she could not complete can later approach an algebra maths internal she was nervous about. A girl who has made a fire for the first time, now is not afraid of putting her hand up in class. Every girl who has attended Kahunui now is not afraid of trying, and even possibly failing. It is the perseverance built at Kahunui that shapes her and pushes her forward.
 
Kahunui does not  improve academic performance because girls learn how to kayak or set up a tent. It establishes academic success because girls learn who they are. Once a girl believes she is capable, resilient, and independent, she becomes unstoppable! After living this reality for 28 days, no classroom experience can take it away. Kahunui does not teach trigonometry,  it teaches the courage to attempt it. 
 
Written by Jane-Sophia Mailangi
Year 11 English and Writing for Publication