“It’s a bit fresh, Miss!” says Lachlan Rutherford, before gleefully launching himself, kayak and all, off a metre-high wooden platform on the side of the pool. Boy and boat splash into the water. The kayak flips. Underwater, Rutherford digs in his paddle, emerging with a grin and a duck-like shake.

Everyone in this 20-strong outdoor education class knows how to right a kayak in whitewater, the kids assure me. They’ve been doing this for three years. “You don’t have to be special,” says Izzy Douglas. “You just learn… Everyone is capable if you’ve got good people around you.”

The Cambridge High School’s outdoor education programme is legendary. From Year 11, the teenagers learn rock-climbing, orienteering, surfing, skiing, mountain biking, and to rescue each other in whitewater. They build shelters and fires, plan expeditions, read the weather. By the end of their final year, they’ve summitted Ruapehu in crampons in winter and tested their survival skills alone at night on Ponui Island in the Hauraki Gulf.

Each class learns to work as a team, to solve problems, to communicate and take care of one another. They learn to manage their time: in Year 11, for example, they have 10 whole-day trips and have to organise themselves to catch up on their other subjects. They learn to connect. Canoeing down the Whanganui River for four days always brings a class together, says teacher Mel Schroeder.

Do you want to take part in this kind of outdoor education? Check out the high school’s details by clicking the link below.