As those who work in education know well, there are huge breakthroughs that can happen for young people both inside and outside of the classroom.
At PGL Beyond we are privileged to see that every day – whether that’s taking a literal ‘Leap of Faith’ at one of our centres, or bringing the curriculum to life by exploring the world on one of our tours, we know how much these activities can help enrich the lives of young people.
So, we know (and see) the benefits, we know how much learning outdoors complements the excellent work done in classrooms, but we also sought to understand better the challenge in getting young people to embrace this.
Earlier this year we talked to teachers and senior leaders in both primary and secondary education to understand more about the common concerns and issues they saw their pupils were facing. They led by saying, across all age groups, that children spend far too much time on electronic devices, demonstrate significant issues around anxiety and far too often students felt pressure from the expectations of people and influencers on social media.
But this wasn’t all. They said our young people are not getting enough sleep and/or are experiencing a poor quality of sleep which is having an impact on their health and wellbeing and resulting in low self-esteem.
As you read this I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know or haven’t already experienced. It’s little wonder that in both primary and secondary schools the amount of initiatives and resource to provide mental health support, educational support, social and communal support and communication and relationship building focus has grown hugely and continues to do so. I commend the additional support that is going into helping our young people manage the pressures of today’s world.
There is so much being done within school, but we also understood the frustrations that lie outside of the classroom – 20% of primary school teachers and 32% of secondary school teachers responding in our research claimed they feel helpless about what they can do to limit usage when children are beyond the school gates.
And whilst you might think some of these concerns are just held with teachers, parents and children have a few concerns too. Almost 1 in 3 children say they are ‘on social media most of the time’, with one in five saying they feel pressure from influencers to be successful, look perfect or have lots of friends. They do admit to having support – over 75% feel their teachers are supportive with that rising to 90% when considering their family. But they admit they aren’t able to really shake off the digital reliance with 58% saying they feel pressure from their friends to be online all the time.
This over reliance on technology is impacting not only the mental health of young people but means they are missing out on vital skills. I find it sad when I see a school bus full of children with their heads bowed down in a device – and when sitting next to your friend on the school bus is largely irrelevant, as talking to each other is now virtually non-existent! Teachers have long looked at residentials to help build connections with classmates – learning to work as a team, supporting others, working on problems together – and communicating!
We also understand that we need to work on the resilience of young people, that we need to support them in building their confidence, their independence and self-worth. This shouldn’t come as a surprise – research from charity Young Minds confirms that 71% of young people are negatively impacted by public attitudes and 93% worry about loneliness and isolation.
One way of course of helping to achieve this is providing a digital cleanse, lifting their heads both physically and metaphorically to see the world around them. Engage with the outside world, reconnect with others and learn to reflect and relax. So, we thought – how can we do this, supporting the excellent work that is happening in schools?
Last year within PGL we launched our REACH framework and when we conducted our research we heard how important supporting the wider health and wellbeing needs for pupils would be. We see this as being prevalent across all of our programmes, but given this specific insight so many teachers were sharing, we knew there was more we needed to do.
Our whole ethos is built around enriching young lives and this stems from our founder, Peter Gordon Lawrence, over 65 years ago. After a canoeing holiday down the Danube in 1955 he set about creating similar experiences back in the UK, first along the River Wye in 1957 before expanding to the wide range of opportunities and locations today. He knew then the power the great outdoors could bring to young lives. But we also know that we need to adapt and develop to meet the changing needs of young people – and we are certainly faced with very different needs for our young people today than our founder did back in the 1950s.
This background, coupled with the intel from teachers helped shape the focus for our latest programme in the REACH framework – THRIVE!
We believe that THRIVE! will be unique and transformational in outdoor education as we bring our wonderful outdoor spaces to use in a whole new spectrum of promoting health, wellbeing, resilience and connections.
What does this mean in reality compared to our other courses or the standard multi-activity adventure?
Well, from the outset it is clearly our focus as we start with a wellness talk and encouraging children towards positive thinking. But the biggest change will be in the new activities we are introducing, which will be exclusive to our THRIVE! programme as they will really drive forward the support our young people need.
Some of those new activities include forest bathing – the practice of immersing yourself in nature in a mindful way, using your senses to derive a whole range of benefits for your physical, mental, emotional, and social health, sound healing – which is an ancient relaxation technique using sound to help healing and self-care and forest weaving – using a wooden frame from sticks, making into a loom and weaving bits of the forest into it. The activities are heavily based on being outdoors, they are completely immersed in nature and taking time out to really cleanse themselves from digital devices.
But there is more too because whilst the THRIVE! programme takes them away from devices, we know that self-regulation is important too. We can’t do all the work students need in a few days, we need to help them develop the skills to manage away from our centres too. So we do other work such as yoga, mindfulness exercises and journaling. Promoting activities that can provide a break from that screen, helping them reconnect and breathe.
We have worked hard with a range of external experts to help bring the programme to life and I’m confident that not only will it be unique but it will really help our young people build the resilience they need to cope with the pressures that today’s world brings with it. We firmly believe we need to unlock every child’s potential and we hope that THRIVE! will provide another powerful way of doing so.
This blog post was written by:
Anthony Jones, Chief Executive Officer at PGL Beyond.
For more information about the THRIVE! programme, visit schoolsandgroups.pgl.co.uk/reach-thrive.
