Outdoor Education

What is LOtC?

Learning outside the classroom is about raising young people’s achievement through direct, meaningful experiences beyond the classroom

 

Making LotC a part of the curriculum can help to:

• Improve student’s engagement with learning.
• Show the relevance of classroom skills beyond school.
• Develop skills and independence.
• Gain students an experience in a range of environments.

All of which not only increases enjoyment of learning, but also academic achievement.

LOtC At St Peter's

As part of the LotC offering at St Peters there are a number of events scheduled throughout the year both in departments, and ran as events, shown here is a glimpse of the schedule for this year:

 

Half Term	1	2	3	4	5	6
LotC event	Birds of prey flying on field.	Museum of making/Design museum visit.	On site escape room.	Fire lighting and cooking.	Field camping	Curriculum Day
	Year 7	KS4	Year as advised.	All	KS3	Year 9
Year 7 faculty event	Maths Maths trail around school site	English Experiential writing	Languages and PE French orienteering	Humanities Experiencing microclimates	Creative Enterprise Andy Goldsworthy land art	Science Botanic garden trip
Year 8 faculty event	Creative Enterprise Innovation challenge	Science Zoo trip	Humanities Disaster management	English Speakers on identity	Languages and PE Traditional French sports	Maths Outdoor coordinates
Other events	School wide project? Communal art piece?	LotC day 7/11			Y7 LAE expedition ran with JMansell	Y7 LAE expedition ran with JMansell

Alongside these regularly scheduled events, we recognise the variety of LotC opportunities that are offered by staff both during their lessons, and as events and clubs throughout the year. Examples of these include:

• ‘Mini trips’ such as GCSE photography students’ conducting textural photography around the local area.
• LotC event days such as Desert Rat, where students get to try new experiences and relate these to their existing learning.
• Residential experiences like going camping, conducting DofE, or undertaking activities at Grafham water or Tallington lakes, or field trips for Geography to places like Sheringham.

Outdoor Classroom Day

Twice yearly we take part in outdoor classroom day, a global movement to make time outdoors part of every child’s day. This year we have expanded our offering to ensure all students get a chance to take part and ran a less focussed ‘Outdoor Classroom Week’ where staff were encouraged to take lessons outside. The schedule for lessons this November is as follows:

Subject	English	Maths	Science	PE	French
Activity	Murder mystery treasure hunt linked to in class reading (Stone Cold) and previous half term (Mystery Genre). Students will become detectives around the school and need to find clues and solve the puzzle.	Maths trial for year 7. Students go around the school finding answers to maths questions based on a varaiety of topics. They go in groups to promote collaborative learning and team work.	Rocket launch. culmination of Space project, in which students design and launch a bottle rocket.	Grafham water - students attended a day trip to grafham water to experience various outdoor adventurous activities. This helps to prepare them for their 'improving awareness of outdoor activities' NEA.	Fill the room word games, matching the prepositions and furniture to their space in the room as a competition.
Year	8		7	10	8
Location	Whole School Sites	Whole School site	School field	Grafham water	Library

Curriculum Day

Learning Outside the Classroom took over the latest curriculum day for year 9, offering a carousel built around them exploring and understanding their environment:

• Changing their perspective on the school by seeing it from the top of a climbing wall.
• Touring the site and discovering the textures and colours that make up their school.
• Designing and redesigning the spaces that they use every day.

Across the day the year produced artistic pieces inspired by their experiences that we hope to display within the school as a record of their hard work and achievement.