Training for Nursery Staff (Part 2)

Tim delivered a train the trainer course to allow practitioners to be trainers for the Forest and Outdoor Kindergarten SCQF level 7, the plan is to embed this training throughout the authority. As in the last post on this training it is based round exploring the three areas of People, Place and Pedagogy; the Who, Where and Why of good practice.

The training was delivered at the Water Wheel Building in the Castle Grounds and the surrounding area and although it was chilly it was a great space to play in.

We started by discussing fun important memories from growing up, and although we were in an outdoor setting most of people memories had an outdoor element to them.

Even with the theoretical content which was needed we tried to make the course as practical as possible to illustrate how the learning through playing can be taken outside.

The aim is for the participants to grow their confidence to take the principles into their nursery setting and encourage others to spend more time outdoors with the young people.

Orienteering Transition Event

In the last week of last term we ran our annual Orienteering Transition Event, aimed at bringing together all the young people currently in P7 who will be moving up to the Nicolson Institute together in August. The theory is that by mixing the teams up, so the children have to work with people they don’t know from other schools, they will have some more familiar faces in the crowd when they go for their transition days.

The event starts with three structured activities, with an adult leading each one. One activity looks at map memory and communication, another at using compasses (and a bit of mental maths!), and the final one at making good decisions on the move – the core skills of orienteering. Because they have a structure and specific tasks, this helps young people who are a bit shy to talk to their new team mates as well as learning some new things.

After a brief water stop, the teams are sent out orienteering in a small section of the Castle Grounds. Parents need not worry too much – they are given a safety briefing first, and there are adults around the course to supervise and form a ‘human perimeter’ should anyone decide to get lost! It’s always a joy to see the faces of their teachers though, when we blow the hooter and send over 200 children off into the woods…

The whole of the Active Schools & Sports Development team come together to make this event happen each year, along with assistance from Scaladale, and of course the teaching and other school staff who come along. Thanks everyone, see you all next year!

The Trail Trolls

Working with Bespoke Bikes and the Stornoway Trust there is a group of mountain bikers who are helping to maintain and improve the trails in the Castle Grounds. They decided the name they would like is the Trail Trolls.

The Outdoor Team have been working with a group of young people on Saturday mornings with Gavin Earon From the Hebridean Cycling Club, to improve their riding skills. they have been working on the Go Mountain biking awards. The long term aim is to help the Hebridean Cycling Club to develop its junior section. The young people have been away as part of the club to race in the Scottish Mountain Bike series.

On a chilly November Saturday morning the ‘Trolls’ gathered at The Hub for coffee and a very welcome bacon roll before heading out into the Castle Grounds to work on the trail. The Stornoway Trust had kindly delivered a few tons track stone to the top of the trail and with the help of barrows, shovels and a mini digger it was moved down to where it was needed.

The Trolls decided there was an opportunity to not just repair the trail but to make it a bit more ‘bike friendly’. The steps were cleared and then the edge was filled to make them easy to walk down but also to create a ridable line.

There was also the chance to make some bumps for the riders but being careful to ensure the path was still a good path of walkers. This created a good talking point with the young people on multiple users of the same place and looking after your own environment.

Once it was completed there was an opportunity to try it out:

Thanks to Ali Glover from the Hub for organising the morning and the Trolls for a lot of hard work.

Stornoway Playgroup go on a Gruffalo Journey

Stornoway Playgroup took the opportunity to visit the Waterwheel building out in the Castle Grounds to use the building as a different space for story time. The story they enjoyed when they were there was the Gruffalo written by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.

They took a leisurely stroll exploring the things they found on the way and when they arrived they had an illustrated story time.

This was made even better because they had taken the Gruffalo with them …

After the story it was a nice walk back into town.

The Outdoor Team and the Stornoway Trust are really pleased the building is being used and if there are other groups who would like to use it contact either Tim or Isi on the Outdoor Team to book it.

 

Laxdale School shelter building

One of the classes, P2/3, in Laxdale School are doing a project on weather and with the class teacher we thought one way of exploring this would be to build shelters in the Castle Grounds, to talk about why you need shelter to protect you from the weather. There was a sub-text as part to the learning, to get the young people to experience working effectively as a team and think about how they could do this better.

The weather started the day with a bit of rain but improved as it went on.

The plan was to arrive from the school and head to the water-wheel building with the shelter building equipment. After talking about the water wheel and why it was there, we began to talk about why we need shelter. Before we headed out into the woods several of the young people discovered a water fall coming off the roof and decided to see what it felt like to have it fall on you and then to taste it.

 

Using the tarps, cord and pegs the young people set about creating a shelter to protect themselves from the weather, the four groups made very different shelters using the varieties of trees and other materials.

At lunch time we were able to use the great new facilities at ‘the HUB’ for the young people to use the toilets.

Some of the building materials they young people used were significant in size?

When the shelters were all complete and the young people spent some time making them feel a bit more like somewhere they would like to stay, then each group was able to give the others a tour of their shelter and to explore it. We then drew the learning back to the features which would protect them from the weather and how.

The final thing the young people were left with was to go and explore and question the difference between weather and climate.

Exploring the Castle Grounds with Stornoway Playgroup

On a slightly wet morning Andrew (who has just started work as the Outdoor Learning team on a modern apprenticeship) and Tim met the young people of Stornoway Playgroup at the Golf Club for an adventure exploring the Castle Grounds. They enjoyed the cover of the trees to shelter from the showers.

All the young people were given a magnifying glass and we explained how to use it. This caused great amusement when they realised they could make other peoples eyes much, much bigger. Quickly they discovered they could use them to look at things and for small things.

Although the waterwheel wasn’t working they enjoyed looking it and it will give us an opportunity to visit again.

Exploring the water wheel building with Breasclete school

On a snowy day after the young people had visited the Creed Recycling Plant to look at how waste is managed they joined Tim. We headed out for an outdoor journey ending at the water wheel building in Stornoway Castle Grounds. After exploring the building and learning about overshot water wheels and how a head of water is created to run the wheel. We had lunch in the water wheel building. We then explored round the area ready to create a three dimensional map using the natural materials we could find, this obviously needed to include snow …

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