Teach Secondary 13.8

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jenny McLeod is Deputy Head of Co-Curricular at Stephen Perse Cambridge Cost-effective ideas However, not all schools have access to large outdoor facilities, whichmeans educators must sometimes get creative withmaximising the opportunities available on their doorstep. For us, we’re admittedly fortunate to be situated in the city centre of Cambridge, where we can take students to the local Botanic Gardens, or explore the city’s historic architecture. Even setting aside a small part of the school grounds to host a gardening or allotment club can prove popular with students who wouldn’t otherwise have had the opportunity to get involved in gardening at home. For trips that venture further afield, many local councils have outdoor centres that offer affordable, high quality outdoor learning activity days and residentials, without the need to travel too far from the school. Staffing and upskilling Coordinating outdoor learning doesn’t require a full-time member of staff, though it may be practical to assign a staff member responsibility for identifying extra- and cross-curricular opportunities, and then mobilising relevant staff across the school. This could involve speaking with heads of departments to check whether they’ve considered potential opportunities for incorporating an outdoor activity, or encouraging them to collaborate with other departments on cross-curricular outdoor learning initiatives. Upskilling staff where possible is another relatively affordable way of diversifying your school’s outdoor education offering at KS4/5. Whether it’s Duke of Edinburgh preparation or bushcraft training, if a school has enough trained staff capable of delivering outdoor learning activities, then doing so in-house will always prove more cost- effective in the long term, compared to working with an external provider. School-wide sustainability Outdoor education can also encourage older students to see work around sustainability and carbon offsetting in a new light. If, for example, a school sports team travels to a sports fixture by coach, this could present an opportunity for students to consider the carbon cost of their journey. Howmight they minimise this? Could planting trees on school grounds help in some way to offset some of the travel they’ve undertaken throughout the year? In this way, outdoor education can become a useful tool for alerting students to complex, real-world issues that society continues to grapple with. Outdoor educationmust be carried all the way through secondary school to sixth form. The important pastoral and pedagogical benefits that come from being able to learn, explore and spend time outside makes outdoor learning an extremely powerful way of supporting and energising older students as they complete the final years of their school education. 29 teachwire.net/secondary O U T D O O R L E A R N I N G TEACH SECONDARY SPECIAL OUTDOOR LEARNING