Some words to inspire from

ESTELLE MORRIS at Plas Dol-y-Moch

Outdoor centres are a vital ingredient in broadening children’s horizons, argues former Education Secretary Estelle Morris.

I was recently invited to attend an anniversary celebration of Plas Dol-y-Moch Outdoor Pursuits Centre in Wales. It is owned by Coventry City Council and over the years has hosted events for thousands of children from that city. The invitation made me think about the role these places play in our education system and the number of times they’ve been under threat. Their survival is really good news and perhaps we ought to pay them more attention.
In the school where I taught, it was almost impossible on a Friday to teach children who were going to Dol-y-Moch for the weekend, such was their excitement. For many of them it was the only holiday they had and the furthest they had travelled. The stories they told on their return kept them going for weeks and there was rarely a child who didn’t want to go back.
Even the staff who were taking them showed the same enthusiasm as they packed the van after a week’s teaching and went straight back into the classroom when they returned on Monday. I must admit I never quite saw the attraction and was content to admire them from a distance!
This is not a trip down memory lane though. I think outdoor pursuits centres are the forgotten answer to some perennial questions. How do we broaden children’s horizons? How do we develop their self-confidence and self-respect? How can they learn to take risks and how do they develop teamwork skills, confidence and creativity that we know are essential for life and for work?

Maybe two points can be taken from the success of outdoor pursuits centres.
Firstly, when they’ve been under threat it’s never been because of lack of enthusiasm from young people. It’s almost always been about money and how it is allocated. I’m in favour of delegating budgets to schools, for centres. But there are still parts of our education system that need central provision, and financial structures should recognise this.
The second point is, why don’t schools shout more about these achievements? It’s part of a wider issue. I know the curriculum is very crowded and I accept there needs to be a debate about the breadth of education we offer, but sometimes in the effort to make that point it’s easy to give the impression that everything beyond the national curriculum has already been squeezed out. I don’t believe that is the case and Dol-y-Moch is an example. Because of the commitment of teachers, thousands of the nation’s children get the chance of similar experiences and it will have as great an impact on their lives as anything else they learn in school.
Teachers often think that government doesn’t value what it can’t measure. That’s not the case, but sometimes there is a real challenge in finding a language that describes those things that we don’t want to measure. I think we should just rely on common sense and act upon it! How about an entitlement for every child to have the chance to attend an outdoor pursuits centre? It’s eminently possible to deliver and with growing concern about how we equip this generation of young people to deal with the challenges facing them, now might be a good time to make it happen.
Baroness Morris of Yardley was Education, Secretary from 2001 to 2002.
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