Marking a Huge Achievement - a champion of Outdoor Learning

 The Centre Manager on the right making a presentation to a 'champion' of Outdoor Education

Today we said farewell to a teacher who has been bringing groups to The Dean Field Studies Centre for 32 years! We estimate he has spent nearly a year of his life at the Centre! On some of those 32 years he came for 4 or 5 weeks a year. He has done many INSET courses at the Centre over the years and it has had a huge influence on his career and personal pastimes.

This teacher in many ways embodies the values and benefits of outdoor learning. He started as a young teacher coming to the centre and attending courses such as Mountain Leader Training and Climbing Instructor courses and has since beeen awarded the highest level of leader qualifications in these outdoor activities. Over the years he has gone on to train up many other teachers and leaders in hill walking and rock climbing. At the end of the academic year he retires from his position of Head of Geography and Outdoor Education at a large secondary school.

As he will no longer be bringing students from the school to the Centre, we thought we should mark the occasion and presented him with a book and framed photo of the Centre as a reminder of the good times he has had here over the years. We hope and expect he will still be back to visit us in future years.

The school still continues its long association with the Centre and have another 300 pupils booked in next December for a series of 5 intense 3-day courses during which the entire Yr8 visit the Centre. The middle day of the course is particularly action packed as we manage to fit 6 activities in during the day followed by Christmas Dinner and then a night exercise in the Forest. We estimate that around 8,000 students from the school have benefited from these residential courses in the last 32 years and much of that is owing to the vision, dedication and enthusiasm of one man.

We hope that ‘Deanfield’ continues to inspire ‘champions’ of outdoor learning into the future.

Outdoor Learning Cards, 'Forest School' Activities and doing it at school

In recent years 'Forest Schools' has become a popular and successful way to work with children in the outdoors and particularly with Key Stage 1 pupils. Similar to Outdoor Learning generally it has been proven to engage children and have a positive affect on their relationships and their work back in the classroom. It is of course nothing new - we've been doing Forest School style activities at DFSC for the last 39 years and many schools have similarly made good use of their School grounds and surrounding locality to do Forest Schools style activities for many years.

Ian Healey the Centre Manager of DFSC is also the Oudoor Education Advisor for Bristol CC and is very positive about encouraging schools to do their own outdoor learning at school. He sees the courses that we provide at DFSC as being a progression to all sorts of great outdoor learning that children can already be doing with their school. We can provide the technical expertise and equipment to lead more adventurous outdoor activities such as climbing and canoeing and of course provide the residential experience that is so valuable in itself, but Ian believes that being outside and engaging with the natural environment should be an expectation and right for all children every week of their school careers.

For the last two years Ian has gone into schools and delivered training in the OEAP Outdoor Learning Cards (OLC) which is an intensive one day course providing teachers and youth leaders with the skills and confidence to lead outdoor activity sessions based around Team Building, Journeying, Orienteering and Bouldering.

The OLC course has always been very well received by schools and has received feedback such as “Inspirational, active learning. All staff should experience this.” However, Ian is keen that such learning and inspiration can be cascaded to other staff and that it is not a prerequisite that everyone needs to have attended a training course before delivering outdoor learning. Similarly you do not need to be a Forest Schools Leader Level 3, for example, to deliver Forest schools style activities to a group of children.

Although Ian is a qualified teacher and has worked professionally in Outdoor Education for over twenty years he is not a Forest Schools Leader and has not worked with Key Stage 1 before. So when he was recently invited into a school to work outdoors with a reception and Yr1 class he felt he was no more equipped to do so than the class teacher and TA's he worked with. He did however have a great morning and thinks the children enjoyed it as much as he did.

 He started the session by reading a picture storybook called "Water Witcher" about a boy living in Australia who looks for water for his family by water divining, as his Grandfather had done before him. Despite the teasing of his sisters the boy then digs a small well and finds water. Ian then asked the children "who wanted to go water witching and digging wells?" and received an enthusiastic response. So welly boots on and off they all went into the nearby woods.

Everyone had a go at water witching with a forked stick and then lots of muddy fun was had digging wells in a ditch. The class also went for a walk, ate wood sorrell, caught falling Autumn leaves and made wishes, found acorns, saw squirrells and generally had a great time being outdoors.

Ian says he would be very happy to do this type of work with schools again but can't see any reason why they can't do it themselves. You don't need anymore qualification than common sense and some enthusiasm to get children learning outdoors. Ian is always willing to talk to teachers and Heads in his capacity as an Outdoor Education Advisor and offer ideas about how they can incorporate more outdoor learning into the curriculum.

New Star Course Orienteering

We have created a new Orienteering Course less than ten minutes walk away in the forest. 18 orienteering punches are placed at distances between 50 and 300 metres from a central start point and radiate out in all directions. The start point is a junction of 5 tracks that is ideal for this style of orienteering course as each track provides a 'handrail' to navigate along. The group leader can give out maps  with just one control shown e.g. Map 04 below. Orienteerers then have to navigate to that control and punch their score sheet with a unique patterned pin punch before returning to the start to get another map.

This method of orienteering, known as Star Course Orienteering because of the routes taken out from a middle point, allows good supervision as students are only gone for a few minutes at a time. They then return to the group leader and can get further coaching as required. Once a pair of students has completed a half a dozen controls they can be given a master map to get as many others as possible in a given time.

The maps shown above are based on a satelite image to keep the 'clutter' down, but on the reverse of each map is the equivalent position shown on an OS1:25K map to help familiarisation with using this form of mapping.

So far these orienteering maps have only been trialed once with a group, but are set for some intensive use with 350 students using them over a two and a half week period, so we hope it works and we don't lose too many. Students that is!

 

New Abseil Venue

It has to be said we don't do that much off-site abseiling with groups these days. Most of our school groups and other visitors instead make full use of our excellent on-site High Challenge Course - as seen illustrated on other Blog posts. Occassionally though we have a school that as well as wanting to do the Zip Wire, Climbing Tower and Leap of Faith, also want to get their group out in the wilds to experience abseiling on natural rock.



 We have now prepared and risk assessed a new Abseiling venue in the Forest that is less than two miles away from the Centre. It offers scope for 2 abseils - a shortish 25 foot one as an introduction as modelled by Dominic in the photo above and a longer 40 foot one shown below. Usually both can be achieved within a session allowing a progression in challenge.




40 Foot Abseil Face

 



Dom at top of 25 Foot Abseil





INSET Training Start of Term

As I write this 17 teachers and staff from a primary school are starting their Autumn term with an INSET day with us. They are working in two groups and having a go at several of our in grounds activities: Team Problem Solving Challenges, Crate Stacking, Zip Wire and Abseiling. They are also doing an Environmental Scavenger Hunt up in the Forest and have just enjoyed a pub lunch before getting going again.

They're having a great time and enjoying the experience despite initial concerns. I was quick to point out that we work under the philosophy of 'challenge by choice'. Having said that many are achieving things they never thought they would have done at the beginning of the day! It all goes to show that Outdoor Learning works whatever your age.

We have now run quite a few INSET days for school staff as well as other corporate groups. They make great team bonding days. This school is also using it as CPD for what you can do with children and is also using it as a way to look at observing behaviour and motivations and providing feedback.

It's also been a nice way for us to start the term before our first residential group of children arrive on Monday. So if you fancy doing something different for your next INSET day - give us a call!

Ian and Dom gain APIOL Status

Over the last two years Ian and Dom have worked with a mentor to reflect on their teaching of Outdoor Learning and complete portfolio work, witness testimonies and a final interviews with assessors before finally be awarded with the status of Accredited Practioner of the Institute for Outdoor Learning (APIOL).

Amongst other things this accreditation recognises the following:

Defines the breadth of skills required to be considered proficient in the outdoor sector

Demonstrates operation to clearly defined standards which include quality of service and provision of a learning experience, in addition to technical skills. It is a benchmark of quality individual practice, with clearly defined standards of knowledge and performance

It demonstrates and clearly states the professional ethics and expected continuous professional development of practitioners in the outdoor sector.

For more information about this award you can visit the IOL website: http://www.outdoor-learning.org/Default.aspx?tabid=72

Ian & Dom continue to work hard in their CPD to ensure they are working to the best of their abilities and continue to develop and deliver high quality outdoor learning courses for the groups that visit DFSC.

New Visiting Staff Dining Table

As those who have stayed with us will know, Denise, Karen and Jane, our wonderful cooks pictured above, always go that extra mile to look after you. We were finding that with the large portions of roast dinner they serve up that on the visiting staff dining table there wasn't a lot of room for it all when we had lots of visiting staff. We've therefore bought a nice new wooden dining table for visiting staff which is a little wider than the standard student variety and has extra room for heaving dishes of roast potatoes and vegetables etc. In fact there's even enough room that the cooks have been making some meals even more special with flowers or candles!

Our cooks also of course make sure the children are very well looked after. The top photo reminds me how they make a special fuss of any student who has a birthday while they are with us. So a reminder to visiting staff to let us know if there are any birthdays and we will make a cake, put the candles on and get the banners out.

Tuck Shop Developments

 Schools this Summer have enjoyed shopping in our new enlarged and improved Tuck Shop. Taking advantage of over twice the amount of room Debbie has expanded the product range of goods for sale and there are now several exciting new lines in gifts and souvenirs that are proving very popular with students.

In fact we think it wont be long before Debbie has a whole chain of shops and franchises coming to a place near you along with on-line shopping as well!

We recommend for a 5 day stay that students bring a maximum of £8-£10 and that limits are set by visiting staff on what can be spent on 'tuck'. We do after all feed them well on three meals a day! With an increasing turnover and increased product range Debbie has more work to do with stock taking and reordering and to help with this and auditing requirements we now have even got a till! This replaces the old cash box and allows recording on till rolls for money spent each week. As this is a job carried out by visiting staff we ask them to familiarise themselves with the easy to use instructions that explain all.

The profit from our tuck shop goes on buying new recreational equipment for student use and to charity.

Comfortable Viewing & Great Spectator Sport

The Trapeze Bar Jump (aka The Leap of Faith) has always made excellent spectator sport. Although at first glance it might appear to be a very individual challenge, certainly requiring a great deal of personal commitment to undertake, we have over the years also found it to be an excellent team activity. This is because the group empathise and share the experience and we hope to create a very supportive and encouraging ethos to the activity whereby each participant is supported and willed on by their peers. In this way we have often found individuals push their comfort zones to achieve things thay could not do on their own. They then have great satisfaction and pride in their achievement, whether it is getting half way up the pole and having a swing off or making it all the way on to the platform and actually leaping and catching the bar. The challenge can graduated as above and also by moving the bar nearer or further from the platform according to individual's height and challenge threshold.

We've now made this excellent spectator sport more comfortable viewing by positioning a bench for sitting on in a safe and good viewing position.

The viewing bench for the leap of Faith has proved so popular that we've gone and added one for the Zip Wire as well. This activity also requires team work to operate as their are jobs to do to get the zip rope back to the top of the tree for the next person. Retrieval ropes need pulling, ropes need unclipping and people climbing the ladder need their safety rope pulling on. So it's not all sitting about, but once you have gone down you can have a quick sit down to relax after your adrenaline rush and watch other experiencing the same thrill before congratulating them on their achievement.

New BBQ Benches

We recently took delivery of 6 new flatpacked picnic benches for use in our BBQ area

As I write this Andy, our Caretaker, is busy bolting and screwing them together.

They'll get there first use next Thursday when we have our next BBQ for a group of 60 students and 8 staff. As always we will be hoping for good weather.

These new benches are the first stage of several planned improvements to the BBQ area to make it an even better location for hosting BBQ's and Bonfires.

Blue Tit Chicks in the Nestbox

Well those 10 little eggs have now hatched out into Blue Tit chicks. We've only definitely counted 8 chicks but the camera is slightly off centre and their may be another two hidden. Also it's a bit crowded in the nest anyway and some chicks end up under the others.

When they were first hatched they were entirely without feathers and looked like little redskinned aliens. They're now fluffing up nicely and their feathers are growing well. The stronger chicks are taking turns to practice flapping their stumpy little wings when they manage to get to the top of the pile.

When they hear Mum or Dad approach they all start squawking loudly with their beaks open hoping to get fed. With lots of hungry mouths to feed the parents are returning every 2 or 3 minutes with food.

No doubt by next week some of the chicks will be getting ready to fledge. The school children with us at the moment are enjoying watching the live video footage from the nestbox in the laboratory when they are doing their stream study activity session. There is audio too so they get to hear the chicks cheeping as well. Unfortunately it's not easy to take good photos of a television image so these pictures don't do it justice. You have to be here!

DFSC Neighbours Open Day

 Yesterday we had an Open Day for our neighbours in Parkend. We had put invites into the letter boxes of over 165 houses in the village and had about 50 people come and take part. We started with an introduction and talk about what we do and then split into two groups to do a tour of the Centre Grounds and to discuss possible ideas for community use of our proposed classroom redevelopment (more about this in future Blog Posts)

 After that people were then keen to have a go at some of the activities for themselves. We had a keen queue for the Zip wire with children from aged 4 through to adults and a wheelchair user all going down.

 We use a slightly different system for wheelchair users whereby they are winched onto the zip wire and then pulled back up into the tree for lauch. Our wheelchair using zip wire enthusiast enjoyed himself so much he had 5 goes!

There was plenty for all to see while waiting a turn or even if they didn't participate themselves. Activities such as the Leap of Faith (Trapeze Jump) make great spectator sport. We were particularly impressed by one plucky 5 year old local girl who as well as reaching the top of the climbing tower was also our youngest ever participant to make it on to the Leap of Faith Platform and jump for the Trapeze Bar!

 We charged a nominal £1 a go and through this raised £33 for Parkend Primary School in the village to put towards buying something for their play equipment.

 As well as 'adventure activities' we also had children stream and pond dipping and looking at their catch under microscopes in the Lab. There was also a fair bit of interest in viewing the live camera feed from one of our nestboxes where a blue tit is presently sitting on 10 eggs. 

 We'll keep you posted how things develop with our blue tit family and how many chicks are raised.

All in all a very sucessful day and one that was hopefully very much enjoyed by our guests, some of whom although living in the village all their lives hadn't really realised what we do.