'Nature is a tool to get children to experience not just themselves, but the wider world.'
Stephen Moss
There is much evidence to show that taking the curriculum outside can enhance the health and wellbeing of children, as well as encouraging them to be more active. We aim to inspire all children to have a love for the outdoors and their natural world. We encourage children to ask questions about their environment and talk about things they have observed.
Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach of us more than we can ever learn from books.
Education is not just about lessons within the four walls of a classroom. There is clear, well documented evidence that learning in a natural outdoor environment has a positive impact on children and when that learning is of high quality, the impact can be life changing.
Over the last few years, the importance of developing character and life skills has been recognised as a major contributor to a young person’s life chances and essential for succeeding in an ever-changing workplace and wider world.
No one will protect what they don't care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced.
Sir David Attenborough
Learning happens outside of the classrooms through planned and purposeful educational visits. All children across school from Reception to Year 6 have an annual block of swimming lessons to develop water confidence, which is so important due to our coastal locality.
We also widen our children’s views of the world by visiting a contrasting locality. We offer a Year 6 residential visit to London. Children are immersed in the history, sights and sounds of busy, vibrant cities which contrast to their everyday life experiences of a rural village in Cornwall. For example, a typical London itinerary includes visiting the National History Museum, watching a west end musical production, visiting the main tourist attractions and enjoying a tour of the Houses of Parliament.
Planned enrichment activities beyond the classroom and school environment, enable children to experience contact with a range of social contexts and thereby broadening their understanding of the world around them. School trips and residential camps are planned to not only support the academic objectives of the class-based topic, but also to expose children to a range of people, places, cultures and beliefs. E.g., Year 5 visit to the Fire Station to participate in Junior Life Skills workshop and the Year 6 residential to London.
