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.

 

Faculty LOtC Schedule

We are rolling out timetabled LotC within faculties throughout the school, starting with year 7 in 2021/22. In 2022/23 we have expanded this with year 8. The timetable of events you can expect to see in faculties are below.

Year 7 2022/23

	Autumn 1	Autumn 2	Spring 1	Spring 2	Summer 1	Summer 2
Faculty	Maths	English	Languages and PE	Humanities	Creative Enterprise	Science
Activity	Maths trail.	Experiential writing	French orienteering		Andy Goldsworthy land art.	Botanic garden trip

Year 8 2022/23

	Autumn 1	Autumn 2	Spring 1	Spring 2	Summer 1	Summer 2
Year 8 (Faculty)	Creative Enterprise	Science	Humanities	English	Languages and PE	Maths
Activity	V&A innovate challenge. Design Ventura mini-challege	Zoo trip		External speaker on identity.	Traditional French Sports	Outdoor Coordinates

LOtC Events

Alongside the events during lessons, there are additional opportunities for learning outside the classroom in events and clubs ran throughout the year, for students of all ages. Examples of these include:

• Experiences in school such as shelter building, kite making, or constructing and running an assault course.
• ‘Mini trips’ such as GCSE photography students’ conducting textural photography around the local area.
• LotC days such as Desert Rat, where students get to try new experiences and relate these to their existing learning, or visit new locations like the British Museum or Silverstone.
• Residential experiences like going camping, conducting DofE, or undertaking activities at Grafham water or Tallington lakes.

 

Previous LOtC Events

Desert Rat

The Desert Rat events are an ongoing series of events run by the Cambridge UOTC. These are one-day young people’s leadership programmes that aim to build, develop and promote self-esteem, confidence and teamwork and provided mental and physical activities to develop social and communication skills. We have been exceptionally lucky with brilliant weather at all events, even the ones in December, and have had consistently superb feedback from all the students, staff, and MoD staff involved.

“It was an excellent activity which all students engaged with and enjoyed. It was a great opportunity to implement some collaborative working” – Ms Sawyer

National Citizenship Service Residential

During the last week of the half term the year 12 students all had the opportunity to take part in the residential aspect of the National Citizenship Service award. During this week they undertook a variety of activities from paddleboarding and rafting, to high ropes. There was additionally a variety of team-work exercises to prepare them for the final aspect: a food truck challenge. The groups worked independently to design, cook, cost, and market a dish of their choice to a panel of judges to showcase the skills they had learned during the week.

Year 7 Campout 2022

At the end of the summer term, staff held a campout for 30 year 7s on the school field. This was a great evening for them to relax after a long term and they had a chance to cook a dish they had all cooked in their food lessons using a camping stove to look at the difference. There was an opportunity to play some ‘wide games’ on the field, then some movie time before a night under canvas that the student’s had to pitch themselves.

 

“It was an excellent activity which all students engaged with and enjoyed. It was a great opportunity to implement some collaborative working and turn taking. The students enjoyed the variety of the activities which allowed for them all to be involved. It was a fantastic opportunity for them to learn in a different way. This is something we can now run with every year.” – Ms Sawyer

LOtC at St Peters

Alongside the faculty and events running throughout the year, we aim to embed LotC throughout St Peters. An excellent example of this is the investment in areas such as our allotments, and our new play and exploration area for younger students: