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BRITISH ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY  PRESS RELEASE

10 February 2005

BES calls on government to champion outdoor education

The British Ecological Society has welcomed the Education and Skills Committee report on Education Outside the Classroom, published today. The BES sees education fieldwork as an important - but undervalued - component of science education. The Committee made several recommendations which, if adopted by the government, will help redress the recent decline in outdoor education, the BES believes.

Commenting on the report, BES education officer, Dr Debbie Smith said: “The Committee has made sensible recommendations on how to overcome the barriers currently preventing children from learning outside the classroom. Now the Department for Education and Skills needs to rise the Committee's challenge and champion outdoor education by ensuring that students are entitled to outdoor educational opportunities and that teachers are properly trained to conduct them.”

The BES  gave written evidence to the Committee's inquiry last year. In it, the BES argued that unless outdoor education is made a statutory part of every child's schooling, the government risks undermining its ability to tackle important environmental issues such as climate change.

According to Smith: “The ability to address important environmental issues, such as the impact of climate change, will be undermined in the future if there is not a strong skills base in certain areas such as ecology and taxonomy. This will in turn have a significant impact on our ability to understand and manage changes to biodiversity and other natural resources in the future. The BES believes outdoor education is so important that the government must make sure that it is a part of every child’s education by making it a minimum statutory entitlement.”

The BES also recommended that, as well as making biological fieldwork a requirement rather than an option in the biology curriculum at all key stages, government funding for fieldwork should be ring-fenced. Support for teachers should also be improved.

Smith said: “There is now a critical shortage of biology teachers with the academic and professional skills to support planning and organising fieldwork in both schools and universities. Teachers, including trainees, need much more support in developing the skills, confidence and commitment to deliver out-of-classroom activities. There are presently no clear recommendations for outdoor teaching experience of biology fieldwork within the national curriculum for teacher training in science. Therefore, a minimum entitlement for every trainee teacher specialising in science to have experience in leading a fieldwork activity is needed to rectify this deficiency.”

- ends -

Notes for editors

1. The BES's written evidence to the Education and Skills Committee's inquiry on outdoor education is available at www.britishecologicalsociety.org/articles/publicaffairs/forum/development.

2. For further information, please contact Debbie Smith, BES Education Officer, tel: 020 8871 9797, email: debbie@britishecologicalsociety.org or Becky Allen, BES Press Officer, tel: 01223 570016, mob: 07949 804317, email: beckyallen@ntlworld.com.

3. The British Ecological Society is a learned society, a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee. Established in 1913 by academics to promote and foster the study of ecology in its widest sense, the Society has 5,000 members in the UK and abroad. Further information is available at www.britishecologicalsociety.org.

4. The BES and the Field Studies Council report, Teaching biology outside the classroom: Is it heading for extinction? is available at www.britishecologicalsociety.org/articles/education/fieldwork/fieldwork_report.pdf

Copyright 2007 British Ecological Society. All Rights Reserved