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



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.

Based on these findings we propose the following recommendations for
undertaking residential, science-related fieldwork with 11-14 year-olds:

τ Teachers need to liaise fully with residential course staff and tutors to
plan the content of courses effectively for their students.

• Curriculum-based activities need to be balanced with adventure and/or
social activities to ensure that student motivation is high. For example:
a rock-climbing activity might precede an investigation into weathering
and erosion; students might design and build a raft after examining the
ecology of the river nearby. The ‘story’ of the science of the local area
then begins to make more sense.

• After a course, work back in school needs to build on the science that
has been learnt on the course. Much that is learnt on fieldwork courses
can easily be woven into units of ecology and earth science at KS3 for
Years 7, 8 or 9. This includes looking at a wide range of habitats, at
food webs and at the rock cycle. As science teachers and educators
we can also learn from our geography colleagues and use fieldwork to
promote Sc1 skills in preparation for KS3 SATs and GCSE coursework.

• Contact with and feedback from parents is useful to assess the impacts
of courses. Parents can also explain the cultural / religious implications
of residential visits which are important for some families.

• More work is still needed to assess the longer-term impacts of
fieldwork.

References

Braund, M. & Reiss, M. J. (Eds) (2004). Learning Science Outside the
Classroom
, RoutledgeFalmer, London.

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