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PKAT Young explorers Award

Over the last term an award for Primary School children within the Peterborough Keys Academies Trust has been developed, which started with a pilot group of year 5 children from every Trust Primary School.

Jack Hunt School became a Direct Licenced Centre for the Duke of Edinburgh Awards last year and has since been developing every aspect of the outdoor education programme through the DofE Awards and ASDAN teaching. Over the last term an award for Primary School children within the Peterborough Keys Academies Trust has been developed, which started with a pilot group of year 5 children from every Primary School within the Trust.

The chosen students attended 3 sessions which taught them how to read maps and charts, erect tents, learn orienteering skills and learn how to use cooking stoves called Trangias outside. Students from the four schools all collaborated brilliantly together throughout every session, completing tasks, applying their problem solving skills and making new friendships in the process!

The PKAT students then got to put all their newly acquired skills to the test on an overnight camping trip at Sacrewell Farm. They all performed fantastically, spending a successful night camping at the farm where they worked together to set up their tents, cooked a full evening meal together and settled down for a night under the stars, or rather a night in the rain unfortunately!  

Waking up to a very damp and wet Monday morning, the children rallied well and cooked breakfast for each other before packing up camp and going on a shortened walk around the Castor Hangands where they could put all their orienteering and map reading skills to the test. All the children had a turn at leading the group throughout the walk, guiding the other students around the landscape.

Despite the rain, the children did extremely well and thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience! The event was a fantastic example of what our trust schools can achieve by supporting each other and working together.

Thank you to all the school staff who gave up their own time to support our children and the pilot and helped provide them with this amazing experience.

I look forward to working with more children from across our PKAT family of schools.

Mr O’Connor

Outdoor Education/DofE Manager

Jack Hunt School

To see some more images from this event, click here to visit the gallery page.