This week, BBC Three viewers were shown how powerful a residential learning experience can be for students and teachers.
Tough Young Teachers is a six-part BBC Three documentary series following the journey of six new teachers working in schools in low-income communities.
In episode four, teacher Charles Wallendahl takes a group of students from The Archbishop Lanfranc School in Croydon on a five-day residential to Jamie’s Farm in Wiltshire.
Planned and other more informal activities on and around the farm clearly provided the students with an environment, personal experiences, insights and learning opportunities they had never previously experienced before.
Charles’ aim for the residential is to improve students’ engagement and behaviour back in class. Learning Away’s initial research findings indicate that residentials can have a positive impact on students’ engagement and behaviour back in school, because they give staff and students time to development better relationships and understand each other better.
Young people participating in Learning Away’s action research suggest that residentials enable them to see their teachers as real people; they appreciate their teachers’ willingness to take on new challenges alongside them.
On residential, you can create a different group dynamic – a residential can provide new learning contexts that lack the stress that some young people associate with their school and home life.
- Watch Charles and his students’ residential experience on BBC iPlayer (this episode available until 20th February 2014). The programme is 55 minutes long, with the extracts particularly focused on residential learning at 35.48, 46.10 and 51.08
- Find out more about Learning Away’s early findings about how brilliant residentials can improve student-teacher relationships and student engagement
Tough Young Teachers follows six new teachers undertaking Teach First’s Leadership Development Programme.