What Contribution Can Residential Field Courses Make to the Education of 11-14 Year-olds?

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What Contribution Can Residential Field Courses Make to the
Education of 11-14 Year-olds?

Ruth Amos and Michael Reiss

Contact details for editorial correspondence

Michael Reiss, Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way,
London WC1H 0AL [email protected]

Brief description of article

Residential fieldwork can have a number of benefits for science education but
teachers need to plan how to maximise these

Abstract

In this article we evaluate the effects that residential field courses had for 428
KS3 (11-14 year-old) students from 10 London schools in 2004. Teachers and
students reported that levels of motivation and participation were very high,
particularly where activities were adventure-based rather than purely
academic. Many students surpassed their own expectations of achievement
during the courses, and both students and teachers felt that the general levels
of trust in others and the self-confidence shown by the students on the
courses were higher than in school. Teachers were very impressed overall by
the development of teamwork skills amongst the students and the vast
majority of students maintained or built positive relationships with each other,
with teachers and with centre staff. However, although students generally
recognised that they had used or learnt new subject-specific skills, few
teachers had planned how to monitor the effectiveness of the learning
opportunities or how to follow them up in the longer term.

Key words

Informal learning, residential field work, personal/social impact

Word count (including abstract and references)
5097

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