Groups
People on camp have traditionally been separated into the following groups, although some experimental camps have varied this arrangement:
- Pixies - Children who are too young to go alone and must be acompanied by a parent or relative
- Elves - Children between the ages of 6 and a half and 8.
- Woodlings - Children between the ages of 9 and 11.
- Trailseekers - Children between the ages of 12 and 13.
- Trackers - Children between the ages of 14 and 15.
- Pathfinders - Children between the ages of 16 and 17.
- Pixie parents- the parent or relative looking after a pixie
- Waywardens - Adults who require special attention due to disabilities
- Staff - Adults who care for the children and co-operatively run the whole camp
From 2007, as a trial, the age groups have been amended slightly, increasing the age range slightly in the lower groups, and reducing it for the pathfinders, to allow the camps to accommodate slightly more older children without distorting the number in each age group. As a high percentage of children who begin camping with FSC fall in love with camp and want to stay on until their final year, when they participate in a coming of age ceremony, when the pathfinder age group previously encompassed ages 15, 16 and 17, there were always more applications from pathfinders than spaces for them to fill. The change in age groups has compensated for this and now more children are able to continue camping into their final year. These changes are reflected above.
Read more about this topic: Forest School Camps
Famous quotes containing the word groups:
“Writers and politicians are natural rivals. Both groups try to make the world in their own images; they fight for the same territory.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1947)
“Belonging to a group can provide the child with a variety of resources that an individual friendship often cannot—a sense of collective participation, experience with organizational roles, and group support in the enterprise of growing up. Groups also pose for the child some of the most acute problems of social life—of inclusion and exclusion, conformity and independence.”
—Zick Rubin (20th century)
“In properly organized groups no faith is required; what is required is simply a little trust and even that only for a little while, for the sooner a man begins to verify all he hears the better it is for him.”
—George Gurdjieff (c. 1877–1949)