Outdoor learning is an important and compulsory part of a child's education throughout their school career.
In partnership with a number of Primary Schools in Fife, Ardroy has developed a two year inter-disciplinary programme, achieving key outcomes of the Curriculum for Excellence.
The John Muir Award has three levels, and is all about affinity for wild places. There are four elements to it:-
Discover, Explore, Conserve and Share a Wild Place.
There is an excellent document here illustrating how The Award integrates into the CfE
We produced a video about our favourite wild places here, as part of it ask children to think about what their favourite wild place is as well.
Central to the plan is to have the same group with the same instructor over the duration of two years. Children will attend Ardroy in either the summer or winter of their P6 year (this varies from school to school), and return as P7s for a programme in the other season. This allows for improved continuity and CfE outcomes to be achieved. Specific outcomes will be listed for each of the residential courses and Instructors will incorporate these into their sessions.
The P6 residential course objective is to complete major elements of the John Muir Discovery Award.
During the period between the residential courses the schools work on projects and outdoor learning experiences - these will complement the outcomes that will be focused on during their time at Ardroy.
P7s begin their John Muir Explorer Award at school in the autumn term, which will integrate with the second residential course at Ardroy. There is scope to link this course beyond P7 into S1 using the John Muir Conserver Award in conjunction with CfE outcomes.
Donibristle PS recently produced this video to share their learning with parents
We would like to see this model of integrated outdoor learning rolled out to other schools so they can benefit from this innovative initiative, and would welcome enquiries from other schools regarding the above.
To find out more, please speak to Phil Thompson at Ardroy.
