Throughout the winter months I have been helping the Midlothian Council Outdoor Learning team run a suite of Discover Orienteering courses for Primary 5 and 6 pupils. With 15 primary schools involved from across the region, a total of 743 pupils have had the opportunity to experience orienteering, learning new and transferable skills.
Using a variety of public parks across the county, pupils got the opportunity to learn navigation skills such as setting the map, feature identification, scale and route planning.
The learners all used our SPORTident computerised system to complete six progressively more challenging orienteering courses which helped to increase their knowledge and application of new technologies.
During the events we had a chance to talk to lots of pupils, staff and volunteers and many were very keen to learn more about this fun and challenging sport. There are a few things you could do to develop your skills further –
(1) Access the free resource called “tri-O” published by British Orienteering which anyone can use to develop orienteering skills.
( 2) In addition to this our Outdoor Learning team regularly go into schools to support the curriculum through orienteering, so if you work in a school please get in touch if you wish to benefit from this curriculum support.
(3) Join a local club such as Edinburgh Southern orienteering club (ESOC). Below this post are a list of upcoming ESOC events you may wish to get involved with.
(4) Take part in the Mid/East orienteering festival on Wednesday 3rd May 2017 at Vogrie Country park. Book via your school.
(5) Take part in the Scottish Schools Orienteering festival on Friday 2nd June, held at Lanark Race Course.
We would like to thank all the pupils for taking part in an enthusiastic and energetic way. Many thanks equally to the school staff and parent volunteers for helping to make our events such a great success.
Finally a special thank you to the members of ESOC who gave up their time to share their expertise. All much appreciated by the teachers in outdoor learning team.
