Question reference: S5W-29950
- Asked by: Stuart McMillan, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish National Party
- Date lodged: 15 June 2020
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Current status: Answered by John Swinney on 1 July 2020
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what support is available to organisations and charities that run outdoor activity centres, particularly if schools and youth groups cancel residential trips due to take place in 2020-21.
Answer
The Scottish Government is aware of the current challenges faced by organisations that run outdoor education centres. In response we have committed to a package of support aimed at helping to ensure that visitor numbers return to viable levels more quickly than first anticipated. This includes:
- Commissioning the Scottish Advisory Panel on Outdoor Education (SAPOE) to set up a sub-group tasked with:
- developing detailed guidance on ‘post covid’ visits to outdoor education centres for schools and local authorities; and
- collating and communicating evidence of the educational value of visits to outdoor education centres.
SAPOE will invite representatives from outdoor education centres to join the group to ensure that both local authority and wider outdoor education centre perspectives are considered. The Scottish Government and Education Scotland will also feed into this group to ensure that there is clear direction in relation to the Covid recovery period and national education policy and practice.
- Facilitating a meeting between representatives of outdoor education centres and the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES). This meeting will give outdoor education centres access to strategic decision makers within local authorities and will provide a platform from which outdoor education centres can discuss the potential for:
- experienced outdoor education centre staff to support local authority employed educators to take learning outdoors during the education recovery phase;
- outdoor education centres to be used to provide space for learning at a safe physical distance; and
- the use of outdoor education centres to provide immersive, fun and curricular relevant outdoor experiences that can improve the physical and mental wellbeing of young people transitioning from a potentially damaging period of lockdown.
- The Scottish Government continuing to support YouthLink Scotland to offer assistance and guidance to outdoor learning providers in respect of their youth work offer and the links to wider community learning and development policy at a national and local level.