Learning to teach Orienteering

Student PE teachers took part in a day of orienteering following their first school placement.

During the day they received information about the teaching of Outdoor and Adventurous activities in the National Curriculum for Physical Education. The practical activities included a map symbol running game, map scale running game, cardinal cones exercise, netball numbers game and football pitch orienteering.

The student teachers also learnt about star exercises, loop orienteering, odds and evens relays, score orienteering, QR Code orienteering, photo orienteering and how to use an App ‘Action Bound’ for orienteering along with electronic timing devises.

The purpose of the day was to draw attention to ways in which the revised NCPE (2013) can be developed through orienteering activities on a school site and within the confines of the school grounds. The activities provided subject knowledge enhancement of orienteering that can be taught in physical education lessons across the year groups in Key Stage 3. In this context, the orienteering day provided examples of activities that can be based in the sports hall, gym, playground, school field and can be adapted and personalised to meet the specific needs of individual pupils.

PGCE and School Direct PE Route Leader Dr Gary Stidder said: “Adventurous activities such as orienteering taught on a school site are primarily associated with developing technical, intellectual, and social skills through direct experiences of overcoming challenges and sharing decisions without the need to take pupils away from the school environment.

“In teaching and learning orienteering activities there are both task outcomes and process outcomes. Completing an orienteering course, for example, is a definable outcome whereas a process outcome relates to how the individual and group functioned to achieve the task.

“If the aim of the experience is to assist groups to feel empowered, then there must be a task versus process balance within the context of teaching and learning on-site orienteering activities.”

Student Ollie Deacock created this short film of the students in action: