Earlier this month FSC colleagues attended and presented at the joint Council for Learning Outside the Classroom (CLOtC) and Outdoor Education Advisers Panel (OEAP) conference.
Over 320 delegates attended the event which was held in the spectacular Blackpool Tower and Ballroom. The conference provided an opportunity for FSC to connect with existing and potential customers, as well as share and develop our skills and knowledge within the sector.
If you have an idea for a workshop at the 2020 conference, please do get in touch with the Education Development team.
FSC delivered two outdoor fieldwork sessions on a very windy, wet and noisy Blackpool promenade:
Memorable fieldwork made simple – Dave Elphick (CH)
The ‘Greta Effect’- Encouraging young people to explore topics of significance – Janine Maddison (HO)
Below captures some of the highlights and outcomes of the sessions:
#iwill https://www.iwill.org.uk (JM)
Youth social action refers to activities that young people do to make a positive difference to others or the environment. There are lots of ways in which young people can take practical action to make a positive difference. It can take place in a range of contexts and can mean formal or informal activities. These include volunteering, fundraising, campaigning or supporting peers. Young people don’t have to try and save the world on their own. Taking small positive actions to improve your home, school or local community can all make a big difference.
5 Key ways of an organisation engaging young people in social action:
Useful for developing DoE and Science Camp residentials for 16-25 year olds with FSC.
Resilience (JM)
I attended a really interesting workshop from John Allan from Leeds Becket University and Carnegie Outdoors. It focused on building resilient young people through bespoke outdoor activities and residentials. A useful analogy of a resilience tightrope was used. And the importance of young people identifying their strengths, and areas of development within a resilience framework. This is something FSC explored during our Nature Friendly Schools training this week, and we look forward to sharing the strategy that FSC will use for enabling students to self-identify against the ARA framework within Nature Friendly Schools, as well as embedding some of these approaches within the new Mindset to Achieve products and existing FSC work with schools. Read a blog post from John Allan about using outdoor adventure to build resilient learners for a 21st Century University Entry here.
Developing a sense of place (DM)
I attended a fab workshop led by Learning Through Landscapes which echoed many of the messages that Janine included in her workshop, namely; allowing students freedom to explore what and where interests them and using creativity to encourage exploration, inquisitiveness and ownership of learning.
The workshop used a smartphone app (ActiveBound) to facilitate a journey of exploration around the Blackpool seafront (nothing new to us); guiding the route, encouraging time to sit and draw (or take photos because of the rain), create a timeline of Blackpool on the beach, come up with questions about the people, environment, time (history, present and future), injecting fun through permission to play (a game of paper scissors stone).
As well as finding a useful new app it was great to hear that others are taking a similar approach to personal experiences of place.
Maintaining momentum in schools delivering outdoor learning (ST)
Segueing nicely from Janine’s Nature Friendly schools link. I attended a session lead by Jen Ager and David Harvey focussing on strategies to maintain the momentum and progression of outdoor learning in schools. There were productive discussions around methods for integrating outdoor learning within whole school and staff development targets, a whole school approach to outdoor learning and addressing barriers to outdoor learning delivery in schools. Many of these discussions will be similar to those NFS Education Officers will be having with school staff during their ‘school assessment phase’ (assessing each schools base level provision for delivering outdoor learning) and will inform thoughts about how best to maximise the legacy and huge potential of the NFS project.
Janine and I discussed models of progression in a teleconference meeting with David Harvey on Friday 15th and he gave us some useful feedback on our proposed model of progression submitted to the project. David also suggested some other resources and models which will be of benefit to us moving forward. David is an informed voice in the sector and encouraged us to contact him in the future to use his expertise as required.
CLOtC through a Nature Friendly Schools lens (ST)
The profile of the project within the outdoor learning sector is high. There was lots of interest from across the sector regarding how the project was moving forward and FSC’s role. The outdoor learning sector is certainly interested and enthused by NFS and watching closely as we move forward. FSC should remain mindful of this and make a conscious effort to ensure the project is delivered to a high standard and we maximise our learning to inform future projects and product development.
