Tanglin’s Highlands Programme: Where Outdoor Education and Education Outdoors Combine
Mark Cutchie
In 2023 Tanglin purchased a former school camp in the Victorian High Country in Australia and went about transforming it into a residential experiential learning campus to deliver their Highlands Programme. This is a five-week immersive experience for Tanglin’s Year 9 students that focusses on developing ‘curiosity’ through the academic lessons, ‘confidence’ through the Outdoor Ed experiences and ‘community’ through the residential living. This presentation shares the successes and challenges from the first five cohorts and some of the data collected from students, parents and staff.
About Mark
I originally trained as a Primary Physical Education teacher and then worked for four years at a country private school where I did all I could to stay out of the classroom. Teaching wasn’t for me and so I retrained and became a Paramedic and spent over twenty years working for Ambulance Victoria in numerous roles from on-road response to education and management. The highlight of my career was being a Wilderness Paramedic and working for many years in remote areas around the Gippsland region of South-East Australia. While a Paramedic, I joined the Board of my children’s school and this led to further governance roles in education at the state and national level and resulted in me doing a Master’s in Education Leadership. While I never intended to leave the ambulance service, the chance to become a part of Tanglin’s new residential experiential campus was too good to pass up.
