Page 16 - Copy of Climate Change and Sustainability Education report

School trips are particularly advantageous for ALN
learners: ALN learners learn by doing and are
therefore more likely to get involved with and retain
learning outside of the classroom. Place-based
learning is essential for ALN learners as they may not
have the capacity to go to different places outside of

school hours due to costs or mobility issues.
Teachers in these settings see trips as necessary for
their learners, however they are not always able to
run them due to funding constraints, the extensive
paperwork and organisation that entails for ALN
settings.

“The Botanic Gardens do great stuff, the wetlands do lots of cool
things, looking at different habitats and how things are
changing. So there are loads of places which do stuff, but it's
just having a list and knowing whether they take ALN pupils
and then whether they want to have, because like a lot of the
time where we spend a long time talking with them about the
fact, obviously all of ours have IDPs, so technically all the staff
who go in are carers. So normally you get one staff for 11 pupils
that comp level. while, I’ve got nine staff for 14 pupils. and I
usually need to take them all…So if we know that they're great
with them [ALN learners] already, then that's brilliant, because
you know full well that's an easy trip to plan".

Finding a suitable place for a trip can be difficult due to needing to take more staff than
mainstream schools. Since trips are far more challenging to organise and run safely
compared to in a mainstream school, they are less likely to happen. An ALN Educators
Network for CCSE could potentially act as a mitigator for this issue, ALN settings could
share regular updates on where they have been on trips that were accommodating and

engaging for their learners, rather than teachers having to worry and spend excessive
time researching and assessing suitable places.

This section has demonstrated the benefits of CCSE for ALN learners building their
confidence, sense of purpose and life skills. However, despite strong impact, outdoor
education and sustainability initiatives remain under-utilised. We recommend that
more support, training and resources are put in place to ensure that every ALN setting
can embed CCSE fully and consistently. Collaboration between schools and external
school trip locations is imperative in order to provide parity of opportunity between
mainstream and ALN learners.

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