Out and About

At Queensgate Primary School, Out and About provides children with exciting opportunities to explore, discover, and learn from the world around them. Our outdoor activities help pupils develop practical skills, such as map-reading, navigation, and observation, while also encouraging curiosity, teamwork, and problem-solving. We aim to foster a love of nature and the environment, teaching children to explore confidently, responsibly, and with respect for the world they live in. Through hands-on experiences and engaging outdoor learning, pupils build the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need for their future learning and everyday life.

A Message from Mrs Johnson, our Out and About Subject Leader

At Queensgate, we believe in the importance of outdoor learning and real-life, hands-on experiences. Our Out and About sessions are carefully planned to link with the curriculum and bring learning to life. 

During Out and About sessions, children might visit local farms or beaches, enjoy countryside walks, explore historic sites or museums, and take part in activities such as orienteering, geocaching, and other physical challenges across the Island. 

These sessions aim to develop children’s confidence and curiosity, strengthen relationships, improve physical fitness, provide opportunities to apply new learning, broaden vocabulary, and inspire future careers.

Intent

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, wellbeing 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 been awarded status as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO. It has been recognised for its outstanding environment and landscapes, and how it reconnects local people with nature. 

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 breath 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, PE 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. 

Implementation

Sessions are planned and delivered to develop children’s breadth of vocabulary through purposeful experiences and opportunities. When relevant, a range of texts will be shared within sessions to raise the profile of reading and to offer children real life experiences to understand the context of a book or develop their subject knowledge. Through discussions with class teacher sand subject leaders, Out and About sessions are tailored to support the children’s needs and how best to support our learners. 

We support many different subjects within our Out and About Curriculum, covering a variety of different areas within the National Curriculum including Literacy, Geography, Science, History, Maths, PE and Art. Children are given the freedom to experience new activities, visit new places 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. 

Impact

Our Out and About Curriculum is fully inclusive. It enables children throughout the school, to access a range of offsite opportunities across the Island. Children are able to take part in new activities, explore nature and the outdoors, develop their physical health, learn and use new vocabulary, further develop their classroom learning as well as find out about future career possibilities. 

Out and About teaches children independence, resilience, communication, organisational skills, team work and develops their understanding of a sense of belonging and community. From pupil and parental feedback, children value and enjoy the Out and About Curriculum. This has a positive impact on attendance and attainment.