Land & Water: An Outdoor Education Programme at Scotch College

Posted: 01 August 2018

The Outdoor Education programme at Scotch College provides inspiration to colleagues looking to hone their own activity programmes. David Kyle, Director of Community and Service and Round Square Representative, shares the thinking behind the programme’s development, provides examples of how activities are matched to differing age groups and offers advice on how to manage risk and ensure outdoor education receives the prominence it deserves.

Author and position: David Kyle, Director of Community and Service and Round Square Representative

Introduction

Scotch College has an extensive Outdoor Education programme which capitalises on the exciting and varied terrain near its campus in Perth, Western Australia. The School has a long history of outdoor adventures, having established itself with an army cadet unit over a century ago. Over the past thirty years, the programme has grown and expanded, capitalising on the school’s proximity to the ocean and by its purchase of a 66-hectare estate near the Murray River (60 miles from the school campus) (https://www.scotch.wa.edu.au/view/outdoor-education/moray). Such focus points have shaped the programme to its current format, offering students opportunities to engage in activities across ‘Land & Water’ terrain. The programme is now run by a dedicated Outdoor Education department, with staff representatives for key areas, such as the Boarding programme.

As the programme has matured, the school has honed the objectives to focus on:

• Intrapersonal skills – looking after oneself, building a student’s well-being and resilience.
• Interpersonal skills – providing teamwork and leadership opportunities.
• Activity skills – honing a student’s abilities and talents across a broad activities spectrum.
• Environmental awareness – building a consciousness of engaging in pursuits without harming the environment.

Planning

In planning the programme’s elements, we consider how to phase student involvement and management of the activities to allow them to exercise leadership skills and build their sense of responsibility for others. The programme is further structured with the desire to marry activities to students’ development needs (according to their age) with the aim that the complexity and challenge of activities grow in line with their capabilities. Activities often change as students move through the year groups to provide the broadest possible atlas of activity experiences, igniting their interests and refining their skills year by year, from the programme’s introduction in Year 3 (8 year-olds) right through to their senior year (18 year-olds).  Despite the focus on year group specialisms, opportunities are also sought to deliver cross-age group activities, allowing students to gain from the social aspects of mixed-age-group tasks. There is consideration also in balancing one-off activities with repeated activities, providing students with both short and long-term goals.

Activity

As an example of how the activities overlay with our objectives, one only needs to look at examples of the water-based programme. Students begin with activities on flat water, such as kayaking down the Murray River. This ensures they understand basic paddling skills and master the equipment to deal with the elements. As they mature, they experience sea kayaking on choppier waters, and the thrill of paddling white water rapids. Surfing is one of the water sports that occurs across age groups, as it quickly builds confidence in the ocean. We recognised, for example, that many of the students in our boarding community came from farming estates many miles from the ocean. Having been used to labour work on the farms, they often thrived in land-based activities requiring a lot of physical strength; the ocean activities were a much bigger challenge for them. That is why the land and water based format for us works really well: it’s a great leveller and gives every student a chance to shine in some area.

In our Land programme, we intersperse activities such as orienteering, geocaching, mountain biking and skiing with bigger long-term tasks. Our 1000km trek (the Bibbulmun Track) is a great example of a challenge that the students commit to over time, where the demands upon them physically and logistically grow year by year. When they begin the walk, they are tasked with completing a 10km route in a single day. The next time they venture out, a little older and wiser, they may have a slightly longer distance to complete, and will also be required to camp for perhaps two nights. Such an experience requires them to think about managing their energy levels, balancing the logistics needs (such as camp set-up) with the needs of the task. By their final year, the students are trekking for 20-25km a day, across eight nights, at times unassisted by staff. With the longer period to play with, students are invited to think more strategically about managing their energy and resources: do they go hard and fast on the trek or factor in rest days? The students really enjoy having this level of independence which also ensures the experience for them is particularly rewarding.

Challenges

• Prioritising Outdoor Education in the school schedule – Whether short or long-term activity goals are set, it’s inevitable that in a busy school with high standards, it can be challenging to secure sufficient time for Outdoor Education. Like all faculties, we have to stress the benefits of what we provide and promote the fact that Outdoor Education has immense importance for student development and academic capabilities. We do this by consistently linking student successes to our programme!
• Managing risk – The bigger the task the bigger the risk! Obviously, when dealing with land and water-based activities, one is beholden to the weather, sea and river currents and any environmental risks, such as shark activity. We have to be really hot on our risk management to ensure that we have thoroughly considered all the evident and potential risks and have a plan of action that colleagues can refer to when a risk situation is observed. Having the Murray estate relatively close to the school, however, ensures that there are plentiful opportunities for alternative activities to be arranged at short notice.

Impact

The College’s staff are eager to volunteer to participate in the activities (there are sometimes waiting lists in certain areas!). The appeal for the academic staff is the opportunity to see the students in another environment, allowing different aspects of their character to come to the fore,  which informs how staff work with students in the classroom.  There’s no doubt also that the relationships with students grow and deepen and a broad faculty presence gives a sense of credibility and importance to the work that we do.

The incoming Headmaster’s review of the school showed the Outdoor Education programme to be one of the most valued aspects of the College. This was no doubt supported by students’ own evaluations as we ask every student to reflect and provide feedback on every activity and camp. Chasing up feedback is time consuming and cumbersome but is essential to ensuring our future success.

The Future

As Scotch College looks ahead, one of the areas of great interest is the opportunities presented by technology and specifically, remote learning, which may well lead to more activities being added in future years.

Advice

• Every school will offer Outdoor Education in some shape or form which works for them, but we have found that the following tips have helped us ensure that Outdoor Education is never sidelined and remains an essential part of the curriculum:
• Consider small groups for personalised teaching and socialising opportunities – Small groups provide challenges with staffing but ensure personalised teaching, which is just as important in Outdoor Education as it is in the classroom. Groups should be carefully constructed too. We work with the pastoral care team to ensure that students are encouraged to mix outside of their usual social groups.
• Be mindful of environmental impact – Consider all the ways that activities can be run in observance of ‘leave no trace’ principles. This leads to environmentally aware citizens who care and connect to the outdoors.
• Utilise academic tools and thinking for outdoor education planning – The outdoor environment is like any classroom and outdoor educators’ pedagogy must reflect this.  So in every opportunity, consider diverse teaching approaches and ways to individualise learning.