Outdoor Education for Schools
At this lovely time of year, there are many and varied school trips being undertaken.
From high mounting trekking and white water rafting in the mountains of Bolivia for senior school student, to a gentle stroll to a local park for infant children to study flowers and butterflies, there are visits that excite and educate for a huge number of youngsters.
Hard working teachers, take enormous care and spend much time planning and executing safe experiences for their pupils. The benefits of educational visits are numerous and are very well established.
However, alongside the tremendous and often life enhancing experiences for children, there is the spectre of school trip accidents and even deaths.
The statistics on accidents and serious injuries to pupils are often over stated and can often deter, dedicated teachers from planning more challenging trips. There is an abundance of straight forward, comprehensive and useful advice for teachers from a number of sources and those responsible for visits should be advised to seek guidance from these excellent authorities.
Children will very often remember their ski trip, the trip to canoe a famous river or more sedate visits to places of historical interest, long after they have forgotten some of the more mundane facts and processes of the classroom lesson.
There are few better ways of creating individuals who not only respect the environment, but who have developed into decision making, problem solving and initiative using, super learners.
As Confucius once said
“there can be no learning without understanding”, it is reasonable to suggest that happy children who learn in the great outdoors will be better equipped to lead a healthy and useful life, and make a real contribution to society. This is another reason to always make sure they have safe school trips.
Colleagues in the IEW have considerable experience in outdoor education. For advice and support in school trips where accidents and injuries have occurred, please contact the LBS/ IEW hotline on 0117 986 2194 or at info@linebsl.com or visit www.linebsl.com.
