High Quality Outdoor Education - English Outdoor Council

How do youngpeople participate?This guide recognises that young people become involvedin outdoor education in a variety of contexts, in schools,youth groups, outdoor education centres and outdooractivity clubs.Schools have a central role to playin delivering high-quality outdooreducation. They may provide regularoutdoor and adventurous activities asone of the areas of activity within thePE curriculum. They frequently offerout-of-school-hours learningopportunities through school clubs orThe Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. Manyschools organise day and residentialvisits to outdoor education centres.Youth services, both in the statutoryand voluntary sectors, providesignificant outdoor educationopportunities as part of their curriculum,which commonly has personal andsocial development as a prime focus.The voluntary youth organisations, inparticular, have a long tradition of workin this field. (The terms ‘youth services’and ‘youth organisations’ are usedinterchangeably in this booklet.)Schools and youth services have incommon the ability to measure theimpact of outdoor education in thecontext of a young person’s wholedevelopment over an extended period.Outdoor education centres includethose managed by local authorities,voluntary and charitable organisations,and the commercial sector. All have thepotential to make a substantial impacton the personal and social developmentof the young people they engage with;for many this is their primary purpose.Centres are well placed to bring theirspecialist expertise to the deliveryof high-quality outdoor education,best realised when they work in closepartnership with their customer schoolsand youth groups. Many centres alsooffer activity courses open to individualrecruitment, for example in holidayperiods, providing further opportunitiesfor young people to benefit.Outdoor activity clubs, for examplecanoe clubs and climbing clubs, offeryoung people valuable opportunities toaccess adventure activities, often in acompetitive context. Clubs provide anenvironment that encourages progresstowards high levels of performancewhilst also contributing significantly tobroader learning and personal growth.Getting started.If the young people you work withare currently not involved in outdooreducation, but you want information onhow to get started, some of the websitereferences on page 25 should be helpful.Your local authority should have anoutdoor education adviser who will beable to help, or you could talk directlyto one of the many outdoor educationcentres with a view to arranging anintroductory course.3