Learning Away aims to support schools and providers to increase the number of opportunities young people have to experience purposeful, high quality residential learning in their school careers. To do this, we need to make clear what a ‘brilliant’ residential looks like, and share and develop the best planning tools and resources to achieve this.

Learning Away is publishing a growing bank of research and case studies, and later in the year will share an extensive suite of practical tools and resources developed with and by our community of sixty schools.

The first of these resources, due to be launched after Autumn half term, will build on the powerful findings in York Consulting’s latest evaluation report. We are learning that integrating elements of students’ current work programmes into residentials leads to rich, rewarding and memorable learning – but how, in practice, do you make that happen?

This first suite of resources will provide insight into how Learning Away partnership schools plan curriculum focused residential experiences from KS1 to GCSE. Further resources will provide information and support under a range of topics, including making use of low-cost residential models, developing approaches to co-construction, planning and delivering residentials for very young children in EYFS and KS1, and many others.  Contact the team to be the first to know when each resource pack is launched.

In the meantime, to support teachers and providers planning their residentials this half term, this summer we have revamped the Help on the web section of the Learning Away website – signposting high quality resources, planning and evaluation tools and advice developed by trusted external organisations.

Divided into three sections – ‘planning a residential’, ‘learning on a residential’ and ‘evaluating on a residential’ – the revised section links to a wide range of relevant information, from concise guidance on managing risk by the HSE to the extensive Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) archive.

Learning Away and Scout Activity Centres are working to explore how, together, we can develop new opportunities and resources for schools interested in residential learning. Over the years, Scouts Activity Centres has developed a huge bank of resources. Many were originally designed for Scout leaders, but nearly all are very accessible for teachers. There is a wealth of free stuff to take and build in to your planning – see, for example, these great new practical skills videos, introducing skills including firelighting and pitching a tent. A link to the wide range of Scouts Activity Centre resources can be found in Help on the web.

Learning Away’s Help on the web listings are by no means exhaustive, and will be updated regularly. Please let us know if you come across a broken link in our listings, and we’ll do our best to fix it.

We are keen to signpost high-quality, freely available resources, tools and services. If you think we’re missing something that you have found particularly useful in planning your own brilliant residentials, please contact us and we’ll consider adding it.