Despite living on a beautiful Island many of our children do not have opportunities outside of school to explore the Isle of Wight and beyond. Our Out and About programme supports our Queensgate pedagogy to value the whole child (Including their fitness, health, well-being and mental health) and to give our children a love of learning through a wide range of opportunities and diverse curriculum.
This strand of our curriculum focuses on three main areas: heritage, maritime and environment. The Island provides a rich basis to learn about these three areas to support the children's classroom work and enhance our broad curriculum. The Isle of Wight has recently been awarded Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO. It has been recognised for its outstanding environment and landscapes, and how it connects to local people with nature. We are fortunate that we can be part of the Island community to learn about, appreciate and celebrate the unique ecosystem we have on the Isle of Wight.
We have identified the acquisition of vocabulary as an area of weakness within our school and have targeted this by planning purposeful experiences and opportunities within Out and About to develop children's breadth of vocabulary. Session plans also aim to support our whole school target to raise attainment in writing. When relevant, we link our session plans to the text driver to offer children real life experiences to understand the context of a book or develop their subject knowledge.
Many subject areas of the National Curriculum are covered through our Out and About trips in addition to Literacy including Geography, History, Maths and Art. Children are given the freedom to experience new activities and respond to the natural world around them.
In addition, class teachers also invite external visitors in to share their expertise and arrange termly year group trips to support their curriculum.