One of the highlights of my week this week was to visit our rapidly developing outdoor education provision led by Mr Smith on Monday morning. It was great to catch up once again with Travis in Year 8 who met with me in my office at the beginning of the academic year to share his own thoughts and proposals for this new aspect of our curriculum provision. Gradually over the last few months, with Mr Smith’s leadership and support, the provision has become a reality and has become an aspect of our curriculum offer that is helping a growing number of students across our school community engage in real life learning.

The Outdoor Education provision has a superb shed and workshop area, several raised beds where vegetables and plants are being grown, plans in place to make benches and other outdoor furniture, a wildlife area with bird feeding station and plenty of pallets to enhance the students’ design and build skills.

Recently Travis and Archie have been making some superb pallet benches that students will be able to sit on during outdoor education lessons and in their break and lunchtime. The students came up with the bench design, created a small scale prototype and then refined their design and applied it to a much larger version. The final bench is big enough for 5 or 6 people to sit on, is extremely sturdy and well made and has considered all the very important health and safety aspects of outdoor garden furniture. Above all it is made from 100% recycled material so fully fits our green agenda. The next stage is to sand down the finish and carefully paint the surface with a wood-friendly sealer. Archie also showed me round the Ed-Shed and told me about all the hand made furniture and work benches and their exciting plans for the future.

I would like to thank Mr Smith, Mrs Isles and all the staff who have made the Outdoor Education Provision a reality and wish them every success for the future.