“We build awareness in young people which they then take back to the classroom so they can see that the skills they used outdoors don’t exist in isolation – they play an important role in everyday life.”
Edinburgh Academy is an independent co-educational school for 2 to 18-year-olds. As part of their co-curricular offering to students, the school has developed a pathway of adventure education in outdoor environments, using our Lowland Leadership qualifications as part of that journey.
Jenny Isherwood is the school’s Director of Adventure and Character Education and leads the school’s work in encouraging young people to develop life skills through leadership activities. She believes that adventure education and learning leadership skills play a vital role in an important stage of their pupils’ development: “We do a lot of work on working in teams and teaching the learners to manage their mindset.
“Adventure education is a great place to do that because it’s capturing the key parts of character education just as young people are beginning to understand their own unique character and what makes them who they are.
“Working outdoors is a great space to do that because it’s where your character really shows up – looking at how you manage different situations and where you need to dial up your compassion for your teammates a bit or dial down your own worries, for example.
“From that point, we build awareness in young people which they then take back to the classroom so they can see that the skills they used outdoors don’t exist in isolation – they play an important role in everyday life.
“We use a mountainside to classroom module within our school so that their learning outdoors isn’t just a bolt-on, but something actually transformative for them if they join up the dots.”
An apprenticeship in sports leadership
Edinburgh Academy have been delivering Lowland Leadership since January 2022, but thanks to her previous experience of delivering leadership skills qualifications, Jenny was confident it would be a good fit for their students. She explains: “I worked previously as an Active Schools Coordinator and ran the Sports Leadership qualification and I really liked what it brought to the learners.
“I particularly liked that it was effectively an apprenticeship in Sports Leadership, giving young people the building blocks to go onto other opportunities such as coaching or teaching. I could see how much younger pupils benefitted from being taught and encouraged by older pupils as role models.
“I could see that the responsibility of being a role model and demonstrating great behaviour was good for leaders and a huge benefit for their character education.
“When I started working at the Edinburgh Academy about 10 years ago, we weren’t quite ready to deliver the programme but once we came out of COVID, I made it one of our goals to put in place a robust qualification with a credible, externally moderated leadership package.
“I looked into a few alternatives, but knowing how the Leadership Skills Foundation programmes are built on a reliable qualification framework, I knew it would be best for our students.
“In particular, it’s the flexibility of the programme that suits us best. Our Quality Assurance Officer, Alex, is brilliant. He listens to me and understands that we might do things slightly differently such as risk assessing or route planning, but he helps us to ensure that we stay on track so the learners can earn their qualifications.
“We see those qualifications as part of that apprenticeship the learners are working towards, which continues throughout life. We’re learning from each other all the time and we want our learners to feel capable, confident and ready to move on and use the skills they’ve got.”
Our qualifications in Lowland Leadership provide learners with a way to develop vital skills which benefit them outdoors, in classrooms and beyond into the workplace. Get in touch with our development team or speak to them directly using our Live Chat function.
