Adventure education – Ofsted report

The report specifically focuses on outdoor education centres. Her Majesty Inspectors seek to find in schools good practice and unique contribution to enhance personal and social development in pupils through Adventure Education and for pupils to embrace different outdoor activities. In schools they try to do a variety of outdoor and residential visits, field work, outdoor pursuits and outward bound activities. Reports by HMI reported that in variety of settings, in school grounds, daily visits to outdoor educational centres and residential sites promotes a diverse learning environment. The qualities and range of activities that are available to promote learning are FAB!

Main Findings

Outdoor education gives depth to the curriculum and makes an important contribution to student’s physical, social and personal education. Not all students benefit from such opportunities. Generally the quality of teaching in both outdoor education and school based settings are good. The weaker teaching sites focus on the activity itself rather than what the activity contributes to the students learning. This weaker teaching can be seen in school base settings and is often due to limitations in either accommodation, resources or the teachers own insecurities in subject knowledge.  The quality of teaching in outdoor centres can be seen better in a small based environment because of small group sizes, teacher specialist knowledge and their ability to change tasks to adapt and challenge appropriate students. Outdoor centres give students a good opportunity to engage in self- assessment however any other assessments such as an exam is not suitable as overall outcome of the students is due to personal and social development.