Outdoor Education Program
At The Alpine School we highly value our Outdoor Education Program and believe that the bush provides some of the greatest and most valuable learning opportunities for our children.
We aspire to fully utilise the incredible playground that is at our fingertips given our fortunate location in the Snowy Mountains. We have access to a high-country bush block that allows us easy access to the National Park and grants us amazing opportunities for endless Alpine adventures.
The underlying goals and aspirations of our program are:
Respect and Environmental Awareness
We consider it imperative that our students develop understanding around sustainability. The more time we spend in nature, the more we connect with it. We become aware of its beauty and fragility. We strive to build in our students an awareness of how the natural environment impacts our lives, and conversely, how our daily lives and choices impact the natural environment.
In allowing our students to develop a strong respect for the environment in which we live, we aspire to instill in them a sense of responsibility, and a sense of hope for the future, as well as the willingness, desire and knowledge required to proactively protect the resources of our planet.
Integrated learning
Our Outdoor Education Program is a central component of our curriculum, integrating and balancing classroom-based learning with the many opportunities that nature provides to expand and consolidate learning. Students are able to practice and demonstrate their skills and knowledge in a range of contexts – both within and without walls.
Competency and confidence
We strive to offer all students the opportunity to develop their outdoor skills and confidence within the safety and structure of a program that strategically builds knowledge and skills from Kindergarten through to High School.
A Kindergarten outing might be a bush walk with a camp fire and the sharing of warmed spiced apple juice and some damper. As the students develop their skills and sense of comfort in the bush and move up through the classes, they enjoy opportunities to camp out under the stars, be involved in supporting local bush heritage blocks, develop mountain biking, skiing and snowboarding skills, learn to kayak and sail, have contact with local Indigenous people, and learn how to read and appreciate our environment from this perspective.
Physical and Mental Resilience
Various outdoor endeavours focus on mental and physical endurance.
We strongly believe that developing a sense of confidence in one’s own strength and capacity facilitates an expansion of self-belief and self-worth, and that physical and mental resilience translates into emotional resilience: a student that has successfully faced a personal physical or mental challenge such as climbing a mountain, spending a night without a roof over their head, or kayaking a set of rapids is more likely to feel able to overcome the mental and emotional challenges that will inevitably arise throughout their life.
More than ever before, emotional resilience is a crucial aspect of our children’s development and our outdoor program prioritises and nurtures this.
Connection
In our time outdoors we seek to foster a sense of connection in our students, both with nature and with each other.
Whatever the adventure, we grab opportunities to immerse ourselves in the beauty and wonder of nature. The Japanese call it shinron-yoku – forest bathing.
Scientists are finding evidence that simply being in nature has a profound impact on our brains and our behaviour, stimulating chemical changes that help us to reduce anxiety and stress, boost feelings of well-being and clarity, and increase our attention capacity, creativity, and our ability to connect with other people.
In a world where mental health is unquestionably a major issue for adults and young people alike, we aspire to maximise these opportunities to help our young people acquire effective strategies to nurture their well-being and mental health.