The Round Square Discovery Framework in Education Outdoors

The Round Square Discovery Framework has provided the impetus and language to transform Scotch Oakburn College’s Education Outdoors program into one which deepens students’ learning and appreciation of character skills. Stuart Walls discusses how the Round Square Discovery Framework is used to explore, record and develop Year 6 students’ capabilities in the areas of Teamwork, Responsibility and Compassion. This approach has now been extended to Years 7 and 8 – all of the Middle School – with each Year level focusing on a different set of Discoveries.

Author and position: Stuart Walls, Deputy Head of Middle School and Round Square Representative

School: Scotch Oakburn College is a co-educational day and boarding school serving 1100 students. It is located in Tasmania, Australia.

Introduction

Students at Scotch Oakburn College participate in ‘Education Outdoors’ programs in Years 2 to 10 and engage on a voluntary basis in Years 11 and 12. From the Middle Years (Year 6) the program (called Future Explorers) is distinguished by a focus on ‘building relationships’ both within the peer group and between students and teachers, for there is often a new intake of students at that point in the school. In Year 7, the program is called “Valley Life” and in Year 8 the program is called “Odyssey”.

The Education Outdoors program has historically fitted the Round Square IDEALS of Adventure and Environmentalism. In recent years, it has evolved to focus less on the activities themselves and more on how these activities develop our students’ character.  This shift recognises that the character skills we hope to develop in our students do not happen by osmosis: students need to have the opportunity to acquire or develop these skills.

The introduction of the Discovery Framework provided a common language by which these skills could be examined and encouraged us to be explicit in our intention and actions. Now, we contextualise why students need certain skills, we share (and show) examples of what these skills look like, encourage students to self-reflect on their own capabilities, and talk about practical ways that students can develop.

The incorporation of the Discovery Framework was trialed in 2017, refined in 2018, and is now our primary measure for assessing our students’ progress in Education Outdoors.

Planning

Education Outdoors is a standalone subject with full-time, specialist teachers, who plan the program according to the students’ age, the time allowed in the school schedule and the needs of the cohort for that year.

The Discovery Framework was initially introduced to the Education Outdoors staff by providing reading material (sourced from Round Square and also written in summary form by me). I met with them to explain further, and then as a team, we discussed how best to apply the Framework to the existing Education Outdoors programs. We trialed the introduction in 2017 and in the following year, we focused on three Discoveries: Sense of Responsibility, Compassion and Teamwork Skills. These Discoveries were chosen by the teachers as ones that best related to the program for that year.

Teaching staff were introduced to the Framework in both informal and formal ways. Initially those staff that needed to understand the Discovery Framework were immersed in its use while participating in the program offsite. This is the most effective way of demonstrating the power and usefulness of the Framework. Whole staff seminars were also held to share details of the trial that was being undertaken but it was more persuasive to inform staff after the event, to be able to tell staff about what we had done rather than what we intended to do.

Students were introduced to the concept as part of a Planning Day, which took place a week before the Education Outdoors course.  We talked to the students about the Discovery Framework language: what the Discoveries mean, and what the Discoveries might look like in their world. In these discussions, I helped the students understand the relevance of the Discoveries by referring to evidence from other organisations testifying to their importance, such as universities and employers. I showed them that these skills are sought after in the job descriptions of roles at Microsoft and Google, and in the prospectuses of elite institutions, such as Cambridge University.

Students were asked to rate their abilities against the three Discoveries. This opened up a further discussion about the development of personal skills and attributes and specifically, the understanding that skills and attributes lie on a continuum: even if you are at the bottom of that continuum, you have the potential to improve. Students were encouraged to consider why they might feel they have a strength or weakness in a particular area, and what they can do to improve or develop that.

Students also had a chance to review our assessment forms and our rubrics, so they could understand the specific skills and attributes we were hoping to develop and begin the process of reflecting on their own abilities.

Activity

Year 6 ‘Future Explorers’ is a challenging four-day program at Narawntapu National Park, an area which exhibits some serious environmental problems, such as feral animals and disease control. Being situated in such a park allows us to connect our adventure activity with the environment and better understand the complicated and intertwined factors related to environmental challenges.

The three Discoveries explored during this program were:

• Sense of Responsibility – for the Environment, encouraging students to come-up with solutions to some of the environmental challenges they see.
• Compassion – for animals, for each other, and for environmental issues more broadly.
• Teamwork – helping students understand their role in different teams, such as class teams and year group teams.

Over the four days, students sleep out in tents for a full three nights, are introduced to basic bush craft and communal camp living, and take part in activities such as raft building, beach clean-ups, and mountain climbing.

These students are 11 years old at the start of Year 6 and many are not yet comfortable spending time away from home in an outdoor environment. Their peers are encouraged to be compassionate in their support for each other and empathetic in their approach to fellow students who may be in distress.

The environmental issues that many of the animals in the park face are quite confronting and students are encouraged to develop their compassion for the plight of these animals by understanding the challenges that they face and the importance of seeking solutions to these environmental problems.

On the final day of the program, students are asked to reflect on their experiences individually and in group settings. They are given the opportunity to spend some time by themselves, to find a quiet place on the beach, and look at the rubrics sheet to record how they feel they have performed against each of the Discoveries.

They also have the chance to share their observations with others. Students are invited to gather together in a circle to talk about their experience of the Discoveries and asked to share an example of something they observed in another student which demonstrated a Discovery. This conversation can be very empowering as students hear positive things about themselves, sometimes from other students who they do not yet know, highlighting aspects of their character that they may not see.

After completing the Education Outdoors experience offsite, students undertake a five-week inquiry exploring one of the five environmental problems they have learned about. In discussions with students around the inquiry, classroom teachers draw upon a broader range of Discoveries, such as Communication Skills, Inquisitiveness, Ability to Solve Problems, Commitment to Sustainability and a Sense of Responsibility. The project concludes with an action plan where the student outlines how they believe their chosen environmental problem can be tackled.

Challenges

• Focusing the content – One of the challenges we faced during the trial in 2017 was reigning in our ambitions! It can be tempting to cover everything but the risk is that you overwhelm staff and students. In attempting to incorporate all 12 Discoveries through one Education Outdoors initiative, for example, we simply created too much content for our four-day program. This year, we selected just three Discoveries, which enabled us to stay focused on our objectives and create multiple opportunities for our students to ‘discover each Discovery’ – reinforcing and deepening their learning experience. Students now encounter a new set of Discoveries as they move through the year groups.
• Engaging Staff – It can be challenging to win over those staff who perhaps are more used to a content-based style of teaching. I think some modesty and time is needed to win them over. The approach to introducing the program is key. If you go in all gung-ho, you might alienate people before you start. Win their support by trialling it first: show them what can be achieved. Then, think of ways that the Discovery Framework can be extended to other areas of school life.
• Supporting parents – We inform parents about our intentions for the program and share the resulting student and adult reports. Whilst the vast majority of these reports are positive, they can sometimes reveal something negative about a child. For parents, it can be difficult to learn that their child has not demonstrated a skill or attribute to their expectations. Where this occurs, our support continues, in helping them use the report information as stimulus material for conversations with their child. The focus of discussions is on finding a way forward. Where a mediator may be required for these discussions, staff members who have been involved in the implementation of the Discovery Framework and understand the process can be made available to meet with students and their parents to generate a constructive conversation.

Impact

We have developed rubrics to track ten of the Discoveries (the other two are overarching). They are designed to be very student-friendly and describe a Discovery in the context of the activity the student will be familiar with. These assessments have replaced our formal Education Outdoors reports.

The rubrics invite students to rate their capability in relation to a Discovery skill on a scale from 1 to 10. They are written in the first person “I am good at.. (skill)” so the student can easily reflect on their own abilities. The same questionnaire is provided to instructors.

The students are given both of these reports a few weeks after their trip. Points of difference between the student’s perception and that of the instructors are highlighted and discussed. We prepare the students for these conversations by explaining the value of getting another point of view on their character and experiences, and reminding them of our focus in helping them develop even further.

The documents and resulting discussions can bring a number of personal issues to the fore. Students do tend to overestimate their abilities rather than rate themselves low on the continuum and it is therefore really important that the process is well scaffolded for them. Convincing them about the value of being honest with themselves is important. And for those where more difficult conversations need to take place, they are reminded that the assessment is a measure for now, not forever, and encouraged to use it as an opportunity to work towards a higher rating in the future.

There is a very definite group of students (a smaller group) that rank themselves lower than they should. But highlighting this disparity is very useful as it provides compelling evidence that they are more skilled than they had given themselves credit for and helps to deal with self-esteem issues in a pastoral care situation.

Following these discussions, the students are given a goal setting document, which builds on the evidence in their self-assessments and instructors’ reports and aims to focus on the practical steps they can take to develop their skills further. Students return to these documents the following year to consider how they have progressed against each goal.

Our use of the Discovery Framework encourages us to generate experiences to embolden a child’s self-belief, prove to them that they are better than they think, challenge negative thinking (“I’m not smart”) by underlining the point that we can all grow and develop, as long as we have the help to do so.

We find that this approach not only extends students’ capabilities in the Discovery skills, but also impacts on other school activities. Students are more committed to their school interests, such as Sport and Music. We have found that if they believe in themselves in another context, they can take that learning and belief and apply it somewhere else. They are encouraged to be more tenacious, to stick with something, even after a bad experience (coming last on the sports field, a ‘bad’ performance at a concert) and shown that they can learn and try things another way.

From a pastoral point of view, we have benefitted from students being more aware of the skills of others and appreciative of the fact that they can learn something from their peers. It has resulted in better student relationships and created a positive environment for the entire year group. ‘Thinking of others before yourself’ is not a mantra that comes instinctively to young people, but the Discovery Framework has inspired our students to treat each other better and be more considerate and appreciative of others. This culture also helps in tackling an issue that permeates all schools – bullying – as students are more considerate of others and more empowered to speak about issues of concern to them.

Coming at situations from a skills perspective is also valuable in disciplinary situations and has the potential to turn a negative situation into a positive one.  For example, the student concerned could be asked how they feel the situation might have developed differently if they had used better teamwork or compassion, showing them that they can learn from their actions and can acquire, develop or use a certain skill in the future to avoid a negative situation occurring again. In that sense, it’s a restorative rather than punitive scenario.

The Discovery Framework provides a continuous monitoring of a student’s character development over time, providing a window into their world and evidence of how they have grown and matured. By sharing the reports with parents, they can understand the learning mindset of their child and share a vision with teaching staff on how their child can develop. The evidence in the reports also helps teachers. In cases where a student is struggling with a subject, a teacher can look at that student’s rubric and understand more about their learning approach, self-esteem and potential barriers to learning.

The wider impact of the Discovery Framework ties into our school’s ambition for our students: to develop young people who are self-aware, considerate of others, inspired to make a difference, and who can be active citizens in their community and beyond.

The Future

We have incorporated the Discovery Framework into our Year 7 and 8 Education Outdoors programs and are now considering opportunities to use the Framework in other year groups, in our Junior School and Senior School. We are also exploring how we can embed it into other areas of school life, such as our pastoral care program.

Advice

Keep it simple – Don’t start too big. Stay focused and make your first initiative a successful one. Simple exercises can have a big impact. One of our Year 7 teachers encouraged a class of students to line up on a continuum in order of how courageous they thought they were. She asked them to move up or down the continuum if they felt they had improved or regressed in some way. Simple exercises such as these allow students to self-reflect and think about the actions they can take to make improvements if needed, or celebrate their achievement in developing their skills.

Get the students involved – Make sure they understand the language, and can picture what the skill looks like in a real-world context. Discuss examples that they have seen in themselves or in others. Share compelling evidence of the benefits of that skill, with reference to university and job applications. Seek opportunities to discuss student progress and encourage others– teachers and parents – to input to give a rounded view.

Be collaborative – It’s important to bring other people on board and involve as many people as possible – teachers, students and their parents – and you need to be patient in doing this. With colleagues, it may take a little time to readjust the lens by which some teachers perceive pupil development. For content-based teachers, it’s helpful to show how improving an individual’s skills will enable them to be more successful in that subject, improve year group cohesion, student behaviour, student and teacher relationships or attention to group classwork. This starts a change in the dialogue.

Sustain your efforts – You need to keep emphasising it and that’s why having a common language is important. Where you see evidence that a particular skill has, or has not, been used, it needs to be highlighted and discussed. Those ‘just in time’ moments in teaching are critical as students learn by experience and example.