Outdoor & Residential Education provides important learning experiences for young people in Torbay which are valued not only by teachers and youth workers, but also other professionals who work with young people. We know they are also valued by the young people who attend them and their parents. Whilst these activities impact positively on standards achieved in the classroom there are also opportunities to develop self-esteem, responsibility and group work skills.
Outdoor educational activities are categorised according to risk and there is a database of staff who are qualified to undertake activities.
Torbay contracts with Devon to organise arrangements for outdoor education visits and offsite activities including the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme. For further information contact the Adviser for Outdoor Education.
Torbay also has an Adventure Licence which enables them to undertake a variety of outdoor education risk activities and also a Duke of Edinburgh's Award Licence.
Additional DfES Guidance
In July 2002 the DfES supplemented their 1998 guidance document on the management of educational visits and off-site activities. The Torbay guidance is consistent with this supplementary guidance.The DfES additional guidance is in four parts:
- Standards for LEAs - Overseeing Educational Visits
- Standards for Adventure - Regulations on hazardous activities
- A Handbook for Group Leaders - Aimed at anyone who leads groups of young people on any kind of educational visit. It sets out good practice in supervision, ongoing risk assessment and emergency procedures
- Group Safety at Water Margins - Aimed at anyone who organises learning activities that place near or in water, such as a walk along a river bank or seashore, collecting samples from ponds or streams or paddling or walking in gentle, shallow water.
A link to the DfES website on 'Health and Safety on Educational Visits' can be found under the External Links panel.
Related Websites
- AALA - Adventure Licence
- DLP - Outdoor Education
- DCS - Outdoor Education
- DCS - Offsite Visit Forms
- Grenville House - Outdoor Education Centre
- HSE: School Trips
- Warren Barn Residential Centre
Contact Adviser for Outdoor Education
- Tel: 01392 385238
- Email: bryan.smith@devon.gov.uk
- Fax:
