Professional development days have a reputation problem. Talk-heavy, screen-dominated, passive — the format is familiar enough that even well-intentioned planning days can drain rather than energise the teams they’re designed to support.
Brad Nelsen, Head of Firbank Grammar School’s Sandringham campus, knows this dynamic well. He’s been leading the campus — Early Learning Centre through to Year 6, co-educational — for twelve years. When he decided to use Urban Quest’s Dull Breaker as part of a staff planning day, the goal was specific: give his collaborative teams something fun, different, and genuinely connecting — without the effort and logistics of taking everyone into the city.
What Brad Was Trying to Create
The brief wasn’t complicated, but it was specific:
“The purpose was to have my staff working in their collaborative teams that they’ve been doing throughout the year — getting them to know each other even more — in a fun and relaxed environment.”
Firbank’s Sandringham campus had been running collaborative team structures throughout the year. The planning day was an opportunity to strengthen those relationships in a context that felt different from the usual staff meeting dynamic. Not a workshop about collaboration — an experience that required it.
Two new staff members added an additional dimension. One had joined the previous term. One joined on the day itself. For the newest member in particular, the Dull Breaker experience served a specific purpose:
“For her to get into the space and understand who we are as a school and how we work — I think that was really important.”
A staff member who arrives on day one and immediately participates in a competitive team challenge with her new colleagues carries something different into her first week than one who starts with a staff handbook and a tour. She has a shared reference point — a story, a result, an experience — before she’s even sat through her first meeting.
The Moment That Said Everything
The most credible measure of a team building event isn’t what the organiser says about it afterwards. It’s what the participants say — especially the ones who weren’t sure about it to begin with.
Brad’s account of what happened immediately after the event captures this better than any survey result could:
“Straight away as we were packing up, one of the staff came up to me and said, ‘That was fantastic, Brad.’ And she can be a little bit negative about things that we have here at school. So for her to say that was a real positive.”
That observation — from someone who tends toward scepticism, offering unprompted praise — is the most authentic possible signal that the experience delivered. You can’t manufacture that moment. You can only create the conditions for it.
The Staffroom Afterwards
Beyond the individual reaction, Brad noticed something broader when the staff went to lunch:
“You can get the feel from the staff when you go into the staffroom — they’re having lunch now and there’s a real buzz amongst them.”
“Just having an activity where they’re doing things and talking to each other in a different manner — rather than just about kids all the time or school work all the time — made it really interesting.”
That shift in conversation — away from the usual school-day topics and toward something shared and social — is what a well-placed team energiser produces. Staff who have just competed against each other in teams, solved challenges together, and laughed at the same moments have more to talk about over lunch than their Monday morning classes.
Why On-Campus Made Sense
Firbank’s Sandringham campus has run Urban Quest before. Brad acknowledged the trade-offs directly:
“We’ve had Urban Quest a couple of times to Firbank. I think we’d do another on-campus activity. It’s a bit of an effort to do something in the city — but who knows? Maybe a great race around the campus or around Sandringham.”
The Dull Breaker format is specifically designed for groups where taking everyone into the city isn’t practical — it requires only the school’s own space, a projector, and a microphone. No buses, no travel time, no logistics beyond confirming the room. For a school staff planning day that needs to fit within a structured timetable, that convenience is genuinely significant.
The fact that Brad is already thinking about a campus-based race format for a future event suggests the experience produced something worth returning to, which is the outcome that matters most.
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Brad Nelsen is Head of the Sandringham Campus at Firbank Grammar School, overseeing the Early Learning Centre through to Year 6. Firbank Grammar has run Urban Quest events across multiple formats and campus locations.
