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What makes Kingswood the preferred outdoor adventure provider for multi-academy trusts? For over 40 years, Kingswood has been devoted to inspiring children to grow in resilience and improve their well-being through nature connectedness and experiential adventure.
Learning through outdoor play offers unmatched opportunities for children to discover more about themselves, overcome challenges and, in doing so, expand their comfort zones.
But Kingswood, in particular, have further created programmes that suit the requirements of multi academy trusts by enabling children to bond, interact and build meaningful friendships across school groups. Add to that their new impact reports, which are uniquely tailored to young minds and evidence the positive impact of trips on children鈥檚 ability to become adaptable to new challenges and maintain their psychological well-being.
Outdoor play offers opportunities for children to discover more about themselves.
Kingswood鈥檚 head of impact and learning, Dr John Allan, said: 鈥淥ur validated impact measures are built upon the principles of positive psychology. They provide a valuable tool for teachers to evidence pupils鈥 holistic learning arising from residential visits both for OEAP and Ofsted. Importantly they provide a framework for continued development across a network of schools tracking progress post-trip.鈥
Bringing MATs together
For many multi-academy trusts, an outdoor adventure residential is an opportunity for children to meet in a safe and organised learning environment outside the confines of classrooms. Given that schools within trusts share values but not geographical spaces, Kingswood鈥檚 choice of 11 centres across the country can provide an ideal base where trusts can come together.
Whether it鈥檚 a farewell trip and celebration at the end of the school year or a chance for students to bond when starting a new school, Kingswood provides tailored outdoor adventure education (OAE) programmes to inspire and enrich students.
Transitions made easy
Interestingly, schools that have integrated outdoor adventure residentials into their academic calendar at either the end of Year 6 or start of Year 7 have observed greater adaptability to transition-related problems. Children become more self-reliant, make connections to others, and report better psychological well-being after experiencing outdoor activities in a new environment. A carefully crafted programme of activities and curriculum related tasks, shaped to meet the needs of children, provides a range of skills required for effective transition.
Children become more self-reliant and report better psychological well-being.
Heather Rowe, a Year 6 teacher from Great Oak multi-academy trust, said: 鈥淲e’re two schools that are in an academy together and we come up together every year for the residential so the kids can get to know each other ready for secondary school. It means that the children have the chance to meet and get to know some of the people that they’ll have at secondary school and make new friends.鈥
Listen to Heather鈥檚 full interview,
Benefits of Kingswood鈥檚 OAE residentials for multi academy trusts:
- Levelling up of essential soft skills across schools
- Opportunities to use outdoor adventure experiences for lesson plans and case studies
- Chances for teachers to also come together and share best practices across schools
- Complexities of booking and paperwork across schools is streamlined and made easy through Kingswood鈥檚 Trip Planner tool
- Kingswood provide an audit of existing trips to align objectives and save time and effort
- There are cost savings for larger groups and priority access to special offers and discounts as a multi-academy trust
- Experiences are bespoke and tailored towards the curriculum for primary or secondary students
- There is an opportunity to book centres exclusively with additional networking and entertainment centre-wide
- Large cost-benefits are available when committing to a year-round contract that could include OAE residentials, careers events, enterprise days, conferences or work experience for your students, with support from a dedicated account manager
- Preferential supplier benefits with Kingswood鈥檚 sister companies and partners, including: , , and
- Additional resources available to support learning, including Kingswood鈥檚 new impact analysis and unique development reports for students, created by their in-house head of impact and learning, Dr John Allan
- Ahead of trips, centres could be accessed free of charge (subject to availability) by teachers for inset or team building days prior to student residentials
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