Living Academy
Stage 5 · Years 9 & 10
Thriver · Expeditionary learning
Stage 5 Expeditions
Challenge outside. Growth for life — across Australia, and within.
Learn by doing
Real journeys, real responsibility. Students lead, cook, navigate and decide — instructors coach and keep the edge safe.
Crew, not passengers
Year 9 with Year 10. One merged Stage 5 community growing kindness with responsibility.
Covered in fees
Apply to join each expedition. Digital detox on trail. Challenge by Choice — stretch without despair.
Years 9 & 10 · Living Academy
Wild places. Real leadership. Curriculum that means something.
Adolescence is a season of identity, belonging, and testing limits. Stage 5 expeditions meet that moment the way the best outdoor education programmes do: experience first, mentorship beside it, and growth that transfers home.
On living.school and living.academy, learning sticks when it means something. Here that promise becomes physical — adventure away from home, academics in context, and personal challenge as a rite of passage through Thriver.
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Independence
Self-reliance, packing, pacing, and problem-solving in wild and urban Australia — habits that transfer to study, work, and adulthood.
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Belonging
Shared hardship and shared wonder forge peer bonds across Year 9 and Year 10 — community, kindness, and mutual responsibility.
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Grit with care
Challenge by Choice invites stretch past the personal wall — never into despair. Supported challenge builds lasting confidence.
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Learning in place
English, Maths, Science, History, and Geography marry to KeyStone themes so expedition is curriculum, not an add-on.
How we run expeditions
Best practice from the field — made Living School
Leading outdoor education programmes emphasise progressive transfer of responsibility, clear safety culture, and reflection that makes growth visible. That is our Stage 5 design.
Transfer of responsibility
Students rotate leadership — planning, camp craft, peer care — while staff coach judgment. Not a guided tour with a worksheet.
Challenge by Choice
Comfort → growth and grit. Students choose their stretch. Adults know the line before despair.
Digital detox
Phones may travel, but are held by teachers and guides — attention returns to Country, crew, and craft.
Thriver · VAST rites
Values, Attitudes, Skills, Trust — bushcraft and survival habits woven through Identity and Civilisation every year.
A merged Stage 5
One community across two years
We deliberately combine Year 9 with Year 10. Over a rotating Year A / Year B cycle, students walk the same cultural path together.
Merging the stage grows our culture of community and kindness with responsibility. Year 10 students model care and leadership; Year 9 students step into a peer community already practising Respect, Responsibility, and Relationships. Together they steward Living Academy’s three cultural garden beds: Care, Curriculum, and Citizenship.
Across two years, every Stage 5 learner meets Australia — coast, bush, capital, desert, ocean cliff — and themselves, more than once.
Respect
For Country, for peers, for guides, and for the limits that keep adventure safe and dignified.
Responsibility
Applying for expeditions, carrying gear, caring for camp, and owning one’s stretch under Challenge by Choice.
Relationships
Thriver Social and Thriver Tribal habits that turn a cohort into a community that looks after its people.
“There is more to us than we know. If we can be made to see it, perhaps for the rest of our lives we will be unwilling to settle for less.”Kurt Hahn — Outward Bound · root of expeditionary learning
Challenge by Choice
Comfort, growth, grit — not despair
Kurt Hahn taught that expeditions build character when young people face necessity — weather, distance, teamwork — and discover capacity they did not know they had. We hold that conviction with a modern safeguard: students choose their stretch.
At the centre of our Stage 5 map sits Challenge by Choice. Growth happens when learners leave the comfort zone, meet their personal wall, and practise grit — with adults who know the difference between productive stretch and harmful overwhelm.
Adventure without purpose is tourism. Adventure married to KeyStone themes, Thriver rites, and Service is education.
Comfort zone
Where we begin — familiar, safe, and necessary as a base for trust.
Growth & grit
The stretch beyond the personal wall: mastery, purpose, action, and resilience with support.
Beyond despair
We do not push students past productive challenge into panic. Choice and care keep learning human.
The two-year map
Major treks that shape the Stage
Open a module for expedition detail and links. Switch Year B / Year A to see how the map rotates — we will build each trek page next.
Challenge by Choice
Comfort zone → growth and grit — past the personal wall, with support. We do not push students into despair.
RespectResponsibilityRelationships
Thriver threads the spiral
Thriver Social, Thriver Tribal, and Thriver Tribal Survival sit inside Identity and Civilisation every year — whole-being practice beside expeditionary challenge.
Who am I in community? Thriver Social · Thriver Tribal Open · Thriver links inside
Stage 5 opens by building belonging across Year 9 and Year 10 — social courage, tribal responsibility, and the habits that make a merged cohort kind and accountable.
Sandon River Canoe / surfing · marine classroom Open for detail · roll over links
Coastal expedition where Maths and Science meet tide, craft, and surf — independence starts with reading place, not a worksheet.
Democracy Run · 1 week New England → Canberra Open for detail · roll over links
Civics on the move — landscape, governance, and living history from New England country to the national capital. Halve It challenges invite sharper choices with limited resource.
Mid-year break · 27 Jun – 13 Jul 2026
Big Bight Trek · 3 weeks Coober Pedy · Great Australian Bight Signature Stage 5 odyssey
Our major Year B odyssey — desert, underground country, Nullarbor, and the Bunda Cliffs. Thriver Tribal Survival and an open invite to Arnhem Land sit alongside this civilisation module.
Alone Camp Select · quieter courage Open for detail · roll over links
A selective solo stretch — solitude, self-reliance, and noticing — framed by Challenge by Choice so students choose the edge of their growth zone.
International service · 2 weeks Citizenship beyond the self Open for detail · roll over links
Every academic year closes in Service. Year B’s international trip turns Care, Curriculum, and Citizenship outward — contribution as the final act of the spiral.
Who am I in community? Thriver Social · Thriver Tribal Open · Thriver links inside
Same cultural opening as Year B — Thriver habits that grow kindness with responsibility across the merged Stage 5 community.
Girraween Granite country · field science Open for detail · roll over links
Granite landscapes as classroom — pattern, place, and outdoor science under open sky (Girraween).
Southern trek · 2 weeks Wilson’s Promontory / Strzelecki country Open for detail · roll over links
Major Year A trek — endurance, navigation, and shared leadership on southern Country. Halve It invites leaner, sharper expedition choices.
Mid-year break · 26 Jun – 11 Jul 2027
Sydney & Central Coast · 5 days Urban civilisation · Thriver Tribal Survival Open for detail · roll over links
City and coast as living history — culture, infrastructure, and Thriver Tribal Survival. Open invite to Arnhem Land sits in this civilisation window for both years.
Alone Camp Select · quieter courage Open for detail · roll over links
Same selective solo invitation as Year B — a personal stretch held inside Challenge by Choice and Thriver practice.
Fundraising for next Life & Living Citizenship that funds the next stretch Open for detail · roll over links
Year A Service turns responsibility into enabling — students raise support for the following year’s Life & Living journeys, including the international service pathway.
Prefer the classic poster?
The print spiral is kept for reference — the interactive map above is designed for clearer reading on the web.
KeyStone themes
One academic year, six deep focuses
Each expedition is married to a termly KeyStone theme — the same spine every year — so adventure and academics stay in conversation.
- 01Identity
- 02Nature
- 03Life & Living
- 04Civilisation
- 05Phenomena
- 06Service
Shared across both years
Thriver Social and Thriver Tribal open Identity; Thriver Tribal Survival and an open invite to Arnhem Land sit within Civilisation; Alone Camp (select) invites quieter courage in Phenomena. See the full Thriver Program.
How students join
Students apply for expeditions. Places are covered within school fees. Independence, digital detox, and real contexts — seeding pathways toward IB, trades, and lifelong curiosity.
“Education is not preparation for life but is life itself. The most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning.”John Dewey — Living Academy’s progressive practice
Next steps
Ready for the journey?
Talk with Living Academy about Stage 5 enrolment and expedition applications. Trek pages come next — Big Bight first.
· living.school · living.academy · Southern Cross University, Lismore · (02) 5632 1218