WestQuest

Taking students beyond potential and into possibility

WestQuest, our residential Outdoor Education experience, is a great example of fantastic experiential learning, and an opportunity to complement our FUSS studies. It prepares our students for the VUCAH (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous, Hyperconnected) world we live in. The program is designed to help students build resilience, interdependence, independence, self-belief, awareness, courage and a growth mindset, along with a skillset they can use for life. 

Building on from the Westventure signature experience in Year 9, WestQuest is a new and exciting Outdoor Education program designed for students in Year 10. A unique and rewarding program, WestQuest furthers student’s abilities, utilising and building on the skills they have developed throughout the Outdoor Education Program in previous years. Offering a range of signature expeditions including Sea Kayaking in the Whitsundays, Hiking and Rafting in Tasmania, Sailing and living at sea on the One and All Tall Ship and Scuba Diving on the Great Barrier Reef, students are afforded the opportunity to select an expedition to suitably challenge them, providing not only a chance to grow but another experience of a lifetime. As a school, Westminster has an enviable reputation as an outstanding provider of OE. Our students’ engagement is a contributing factor to the culture of our School and the success of our Old Scholars. The adventure that they experience in our Outdoor Education program, consciously and subconsciously, provides them with invaluable skills.

Our students have unique OE opportunities to learn risk-taking in a safe environment, working as individuals and in teams. Their knowledge of our environment is enhanced considerably. They learn to endure hardship, discovering their limits are often well beyond what they thought. This all helps our students develop emotional intelligence and a raft of skills, allowing them to fulfil their potential.

As parents, we identify opportunities for our children to grow. This means encouraging them to do things they may not want to do but we anticipate will serve them well. When they enter the workforce, they may find themselves in jobs where they may not want to do elements of their work, yet they cannot shy away from them. We have an obligation to teach our students how to face seemingly insurmountable challenges so they can deal with them in a proactive manner, without negative wellbeing ramifications. We can do our children a great disservice by always letting them do what they want, inadvertently creating a life where adversity is never faced.

WestQuest commenced in 2023 and has offered students a great range of activities from which to choose. The nature of the expeditions being offered means that the program will run throughout the year as climatic conditions allow. All students are expected to be involved in WestQuest. It will require them to be organised, prepared and methodical with their overall study, an excellent segue into Years 11 and 12.

A ladder to a wonderful, fulfilling and successful life is climbed only by using the rungs of opportunity. Your hands don’t pull you up a ladder, it’s your legs that do the driving, which only happens when you take the risk of stepping up. Building on Westventure, Westminster School’s WestQuest program provides another fulfilling experience for students to embrace stepping up and achieving more than they thought possible.