SSPEL Newsletter: Research and Scholarly Activities

Monday, February 13, 2006

Marjon staff have been involved in important recent initiatives to develop scholarship and research in this field:

Mark Leather attended the IOL Outdoor Learning Research Forum in November 2005, and gave a presentation on ideas for future research (especially on the issue of why some schools “bucked the trend” in terms of involvement in school trips and visits).

Both Mark and Su have produced a chapter on the development of Outdoor Adventure as an academic subject at Marjons in a brand new publication (Humberstone, B. and Brown, H. (eds) (2006) Shaping the Outdoor Profession Through Higher Education: Creative Diversity in Outdoor Studies Courses in Higher Education in the UK, published by the Institute for Outdoor Learning, www.outdoor-learning.org.). The publication is intended to feed into two important conferences this year.

Outdoor Adventure held its inaugural meeting of their Professional Advisory Board on Friday 27th January. This meeting was well attended, the discussions flowed and we believe all those present benefited in some way. Out of this meeting came the confirmation that there is a need for CPD for practitioners in the field particularly in the area of 'soft skills', dealing with people in a number of different ways. We aim to explore the development of such work in the near future. In addition to this there will be work with LDAs on the National CPD programme for PE teachers and other associated staff and PE PGCE students to develop Outdoor Adventure in schools. It is hoped that this work will be further enhanced by the Government's Manifesto for Education Outside the Classroom.

Su Porter