Case Study: Embedding Adventure as Curriculum and Character Education, St Andrew’s School Turi

For students at the St Andrew’s School, Turi in Kenya, adventure is not an occasional escape from learning, it is learning. Purposefully designed to integrate with classroom knowledge, develop life skills, and stretch students’ confidence, St Andrew’s School, Turi’s adventure programme builds year by year, guiding students through a structured journey from familiar ground to far-flung expeditions.

“Many of our students grow up in major cities, Nairobi, Kampala, Addis Ababa,” explains Head of Year and Round Square Coordinator Edward Lea. “They’ve never pitched a tent, or been in a forest overnight. So we don’t throw them straight into the wild. We build them up step by step.”

A Progressive Adventure Model

At St Andrew’s School, Turi, adventure is structured with intention. Students begin with shorter, local experiences in lower secondary, gradually progressing toward multi-day, higher-altitude treks and international service expeditions by senior years. Each stage introduces more responsibility, greater challenge, and deeper learning, as well as opportunities for leadership and self-direction.

In Year 9 (Age 13), students begin with a climb up Mount Longonot, meals are cooked by school chefs and tents already pitched. The challenge is physical, but the focus is teamwork and mindset. Students have the chance to apply the mountain biking skills learned on the school track to the terrain of Hell’s Gate National Park where they encounter all sorts of wildlife, sometimes unintentionally!

 By Year 10, students are ready to tackle the more challenging terrain of Aberdare National Park. On this trip, students pitch their own tents and cook all their own food over fires, not just for themselves but for their tutors. Skills perfected on the school climbing wall are applied to 30 meter cliff faces. The school medical centre teach students to cope with a variety of emergency scenarios from buffalo attacks to snake bites. In Year 11, a select group become Adventure Apprentices, trained in first aid, canoeing, navigation, shelter building and leadership. These students often emerge from outside traditional leadership paths, but thrive in hands-on environments.

By Year 12 and 13, they become Adventure Prefects, leading weekend activities for younger students Adventure prefects are awarded special adventure ties to increase their visibility to aspiring younger students.

“We’re trying to raise the kind of student you’d want to be stranded on a desert island with,” Ed says. “Resilient, resourceful, persistent, what we call persilience, and able to work together through difficulty and come out the other side with a sense of humor.”

Optional trips:

Students who excel on their compulsory year group trips are encouraged to consider greater challenges including the summiting of Mt Kenya, Kilimanjaro and the most challenging of all, the Rwenzori Mountains of Uganda. St Andrew’s is proud to have the youngest girl and boy to have summited this range.

Curriculum Connections

Throughout, teachers bring curriculum alive in the field, for example:

• Geography and Biology: students climb Mount Kenya, observing vegetation changes with altitude and studying glacial and volcanic landforms.
• Maths skills are reinforced through compass navigation, triangulating position, measuring distance and gradient, and plotting maps.
• English is explored through crafting and performing campfire stories, with focus on tone, gesture, and narrative arc.
• History is woven in through the story of Italian prisoners of war who, during WWII, attempted to climb Mount Kenya using handmade gear — not to escape, but to summit. Their journey is used as a lens to examine conflict, resilience, and human drive. The legacy of colonialism is also discussed and understood when exploring the names behind the landmarks visited.
• Physics and Engineering are drawn into activities like fixing mountain bikes, or building weatherproof shelters from scavenged materials.

“We make it clear to faculties: this isn’t a break from the curriculum,” says Edward. “It’s an extension of it. That’s why we bring a range of teachers, biologists, historians, geographers, mathematicians, to deepen the links.”

Reflection and Reinforcement

Reflection is incorporated into every stage of the journey. After each trip, students revisit the experience in tutor time, assemblies, and reflective writing sessions. Every trip away involves making a video of what happened, others write letters to their future selves. One memorable exercise involved a student cracking a raw egg over his own head on camera, a humorous but honest metaphor for how tough moments shaped him.

“Those moments when  you can’t get your fire started in the rain or your shelter collapses, they’re frustrating, but they’re also unforgettable, and incredibly formative. That’s where humour, empathy, and self-reliance are built,” Edward reflects.

Start Small, Build Up: How Schools Can Replicate This

For schools looking to adopt a similar approach, Ed offers this practical roadmap:

1. Start in the classroom: Teach basic knots, navigation, safety, and outdoor cooking skills before leaving campus. This empowers students and maximises time in the field. Explore the landscapes you aspire to visit using secondary data to know what you will be up against and be prepared.
2. Begin with what you have: Don’t wait for mountains or rivers. Use school fields, nearby parks, or even hallways to simulate navigation and shelter-building.
3. Plan progression: Build a scaffolded programme year by year. Don’t try to run the toughest trip first, let students (and staff) grow into challenge.
4. Prep properly: Allocate 6–8 weeks of build-up for each major expedition. Teach essential skills in advance and build academic context around the experience.
5. Get cross-curricular: Involve different subject teachers in trip planning. Link every activity to curriculum, from marshmallow to mountain.
6. Reflect intentionally: Use assemblies, journals, photos, and peer sharing to help students process what they’ve experienced, and see how far they’ve come.
7. Make it culturally relevant: Use local stories, local guides, and local heroes. “For our Kenyan and Ugandan students,” Ed explains, “hearing from a local Kenyan mountaineer who climbed Mount Kenya barefoot, is transformative. It makes adventure feel like something for them, not just imported.”

Character Through Challenge

The outcomes go well beyond curriculum. St Andrew’s School, Turi,  students emerge with increased self-confidence, empathy, and a powerful sense of capability.

“By the time they reach the summit of Longonot or Mount Kenya,” says Edward, “they’re different people. They’ve learned they can push through tiredness. That they can help someone else. That they can go without WiFi and hot water and still have the best time of their lives.”

Perhaps most importantly, they learn how to laugh. “A sense of humour is essential. You’ll burn your dinner. You’ll forget your socks. And that’s where you grow – together.”

Round Square as a Framework

Being part of the Round Square network ensures that St Andrew’s School, Turi adventure programme doesn’t just focus on endurance or achievement, but on the RS IDEALS:

This framework encourages staff to keep asking: What else can we add? Who else can we include? How can we go deeper?

As Edward concludes, “We are by no means the experts. We’re still learning from other schools, from our students, from every new trip. But the Round Square community makes that learning possible. We’re not alone on the path.”