A Holistic Outdoor Education Programme – What, How and Why?
John Witton
An overview of how we run an extensive Outdoor Education Programme at JIS, incorporating the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award (approximately 230 students and one of the largest Gold cohorts in the World), Scouting, Residential Camps, an Outdoor Discovery Centre and Forest School. An overview of how we manage everything from scheduling to kit with takeaways that can hopefully be applied to various contexts.
About John
This is my 21st year teaching and I have been involved in outdoor education my entire career. I set up D of E at my first school in South East London and was the International Award Coordinator at BIS in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. I was Director of Co-curricular at NLCS Jeju, on Jeju Island in South Korea with oversight of the entire enrichment programme, including after school CCAs and the Saturday morning ‘Bryant’ programme of adventurous activities. I taught for 5 years at Sevenoaks School in the UK where I was Head of Cross Country (and qualified as a running coach), and did my D of E Supervisor and Assessor Course. I was Head of D of E at Harrow Bangkok and am currently Head of Outdoor Education at Jerudong International School in Brunei where I have oversight of all outdoor activities including the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award, 1st Jerudong Scouts (we are a British Scout troop overseas), year group trips and Outdoor Learning across the Junior and Senior Schools.
