Education outside the classroom and school visits.

Another day dawns and another day at School teaching those that want to learn and those that clearly don't! Which would I rather teach?.................. I will leave up to your imagination. Suffice to say if I could be 'beamed up' to Marich, or anywhere in Kenya for that matter, away from here, the improvement to my life, state of mind and gneral well-being would be incalculable. I would of course take the students and staff destined to travel next May and would educate them there......... they would, I feel, get a better, all-round education and at the end of it would be produced better human beings.

I have always said, even when at University, that teaching should not be restricted to the confines of the classroom. It should be conducted somewhere more conducive to the learning process and not some carbuncle of a classroom. I appreciate that it is not always possible to teach away from the classroom or in such a restricted environment but there should be more of an opportunity. Only because the bleeding hearted liberals and Health & Safety bods dictate, students are prevented from many out of school activities. Teachers organising such trips are also less inclined to even propose trips because of the paperwork, bureaucracy and red-tape as well as the responsibility that weighs heavy on their shoulders should anything go wrong or untoward happen whilst away from the ball of cotton wool that is the school.

Accidents will happen. If students, or teachers for that matter, don't follow rules or use their common sense it is very clear to me that you leave it open for accidents to happen. Before all the Risk Assessment, EVC's, Paperwork, different coloured forms etc., were there any major mishaps or accidents on field trips? I think not, but then again, maybe I'm wrong. No doubt I will get feedback on this one.

What I'm getting at is the kids could learn so much about the world by being out there and in it but how many don't get the opportunity because teachers/organisers don't want to risk it and the time taken to obtain sanction is just not worth it unless you're passionate about the trip/visit that you are proposing to undertake.

Onto better things................. twelve Year 11's now signed up for the second trip but this number is without them knowing how much this trip, at peak season, is going to cost them. Will numbers go up...................... or down?

Videos and BLOG were well received by the students when the link was published in the School Herald. How many will access the link and how many will make comment?............ and more importantly will this help fill some of the 10 empty spaces on the trip?