I have spent the last 13 years working in education, most of that time as a Teacher of History and Politics. Alongside that, I taught Philosophy and Ethics, worked as a Head of Year 7, lectured at University, and extensively coached sport. I loved being a teacher, and I think I always will. There is something incredibly rewarding about watching a young person experience that ‘lightbulb moment’, seeing a student find confidence in Warhammer Club, or simply getting to know someone outside of the classroom.
Conservation, sustainability, mental health and personal development
I have also always enjoyed the parts of school that take place beyond the traditional classroom. Some of my favourite memories from teaching are not necessarily of particular lessons, but of school trips, sporting fixtures, residentials, conversations in corridors and those moments when you see a completely different side to a student. I think that is probably why my current role as an Exploration Officer at Flooglebinder feels like such a natural fit. I am still working in education and still thinking about how we can give young people meaningful experiences, but now I get to think about what happens when we take learning beyond the school gates.
A recent three-day experience in St David’s, Pembrokeshire, really brought this home to me.
The trip was built around four main pillars: conservation, sustainability, mental health and personal development, but what I found most interesting was how naturally those different things came together. Students were not simply being taken somewhere beautiful and given a series of activities to keep them busy. They were being given opportunities to experience things for themselves, to challenge themselves, to work together and, importantly, to think about their place in the world around them.
One of the clearest examples was coasteering. If you have never been coasteering, this is your signal to go and try it. There is something really quite entertaining about watching a group of students confidently strut all the way from a comfortable camp site, down a cliff to the edge of the water and then realise that they are actually going to have to throw themselves in. For some, there is no hesitation whatsoever; they channel their inner-wild child. They are in before anyone has finished explaining what they are doing. For others, it is a completely different story. You can see them looking at the water, looking at the jump, looking at their friends and wondering whether they really have to do this, or whether they actually can.
Peer support and experiencing resilience
It was at this moment that my love for teaching all came flooding back and the best moments of the last decade resurfaced (no pun intended). Students who had already made the jump started encouraging those who were still standing at the edge. They cheered each other on, waited for one another and genuinely celebrated when someone finally took the plunge. The important thing was not really the jump itself, it was watching a group of young people realise that they could help each other through something that was challenging.
Having spent so much of my career involved in pastoral care; as form tutor from Year 7 – 13, assisting in Boarding Houses and eventually becoming Head of Year, those moments really stood out to me. We talk a lot in schools about buzzwords like: resilience, confidence, teamwork and empathy, and quite rightly so, but there is a difference between talking about those qualities and putting young people in a situation where they actually have to use them. Nobody needed to give the students a lesson on resilience while they were standing on that coastline. They were experiencing it, and they were experiencing it together.
Fun, educational and impactful
At the Grub Kitchen, students were introduced to the idea of insects as a sustainable source of food. This, unsurprisingly, produced a fairly wide range of reactions. There was curiosity, disbelief, elbow nudges and a few faces that suggested that eating bugs was perhaps where the educational experience had gone too far. Some did it because they were genuinely interested, some because their friends were doing it and some, I suspect, because they simply didn’t want to be the one person who hadn’t eaten a bug. But again, underneath the fun was something deeper, students were being encouraged to think about where our food comes from, how we use the world’s resources and whether we might need to think differently about food production in the future.
It was a good reminder that learning doesn’t always have to be ‘serious’ to be meaningful. Students can laugh and joke and do something slightly ridiculous while still having a genuine conversation about some very serious issues. In fact, sometimes the slightly ridiculous experience is exactly what makes them want to talk about the issue in the first place, and continue talking and reminiscing about it many years later.
The beach clean was another example of something that initially seemed quite simple but became much more meaningful because students were actually doing it. Give a group of students a bag and tell them to collect rubbish and you quickly discover that the desire to win is most certainly alive and well. Once the rubbish had been collected and the ‘competition’ was over, students could start thinking about why the activity mattered in the first place. Why was this rubbish on the beach? Where did it come from? Who was responsible for dealing with it? And what impact does it have on the local community and environment?
That shift, especially in terms of the final two questions, is vital. It is easy to tell young people that they should care for their environment in the traditional classroom, but it is much more powerful when they have actually spent time looking after it themselves. For a few hours, that
beach became their responsibility. They could see the immediate difference their efforts had made, but they could also begin to understand that the consequences of environmental decisions stretch much further than their own lives. A beach in Pembrokeshire, especially if you’re a 5-hour coach ride away, might seem a long way from their everyday lives, but the choices we make about consumption, waste and the environment connect us all.
Real life, memorable experiences
As a teacher, I always found residentials fascinating because you see students outside the routines of school. You see who they are when they aren’t sitting behind the same desk every day. You see how they adapt to the entirety of four-seasons of weather on the Welsh coastline. The student who is quiet in a classroom might be the chief-entertainer around the campfire. Someone who lacks confidence academically might be brilliant at encouraging others during an activity. They become a group in a way that is difficult to manufacture, harness and grow in a ‘normal’ school day (if there is such a thing!). That is where I think learning outside the classroom becomes particularly powerful. The experience gives students something to work with. Instead of learning about an environmental problem from a textbook, they have seen it. Instead of talking about teamwork, they have needed to rely on each other. Instead of discussing sustainability as an abstract concept, they have met people trying to find practical solutions to it. The classroom can then become the place where they apply these lived experiences, ask better questions and explore the ideas further.
After over a decade working in education, I know how easy it can be for young people to acquire labels. They are: ‘the quiet one, the brainy one, the difficult one, the sporty one, the one-who-doesn’t-do-their-homework-and-has-an-excuse-for-everything one’. Take them out of their usual environment and it is remarkable how quickly those labels can disappear.
The Wales experience also made me think about what we mean when we talk about an ‘educational’ trip. I fundamentally disagree that education has to mean that every activity has an obvious learning objective attached to it. Learning is so much more than academic prowess, hitting predicted grades and getting homework in on time. In the reality of an ever-changing world, a student learning that they can overcome a fear is an educational experience, as is developing so called ‘soft skills’; learning empathy, how to support a friend, talking to people you had never spoken to before. In a world where travel is more accessible than ever, where social media reveals many of the surprises before you’ve experienced them, simply realising that the world is much bigger and more interesting than they had previously imagined is a true life experience.
For me, that is what learning outside the classroom is really about. It isn’t about replacing what happens in school. It is about giving young people experiences that make what happens in school feel more relevant and real.
I still love the classroom, this will never end, but I truly believe that some of the most important learning we can offer young people happens when we take them somewhere unfamiliar, give them something real to experience and allow them to work things out for themselves.
The classroom has four walls. Education doesn’t have to.
This blog post was written by:
Luke Sarsons – Exploration Officer, Flooglebinder
Luke has 13 years’ experience working in education, primarily as a Teacher of History and Politics. He has also taught Philosophy, Ethics and Personal Development, worked in pastoral leadership as a Head of Year and coached sport. He is passionate about education and particularly enjoys creating opportunities for young people to learn through experience, challenge themselves, develop relationships and better understand the world around them.
Luke now works as an Exploration Officer at Flooglebinder, where he designs and develops educational experiences for schools.
