Outdoor & Residential Education provides important learning experiences for young people in Torbay which are valued not only by teachers and youth workers, but also other professionals who work with young people. We know they are also valued by the young people who attend them and their parents. Whilst these activities impact positively on standards achieved in the classroom there are also opportunities to develop self-esteem, responsibility and group work skills.

Devon and Torbay publishes a booklet entitled 'Outdoor Education, Visits & Offsite Activities' giving advice on a great variety of activities. You can download and view a copy of this booklet from the Related Documents panel below. Outdoor educational activities are categorised according to risk and there is a database of staff who are qualified to undertake activities.

Torbay contracts with Devon to organise arrangements for outdoor education visits and offsite activities including the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme. For further information contact the Adviser for Outdoor Education.

Torbay also has an Adventure Licence which enables them to undertake a variety of outdoor education risk activities and also a Duke of Edinburgh's Award Licence.

Additional DfES Guidance

In July 2002 the DfES supplemented their 1998 guidance document on the management of educational visits and off-site activities. The Torbay guidance is consistent with this supplementary guidance.

The DfES additional guidance is in four parts:

• Standards for LEAs - Overseeing Educational Visits
• Standards for Adventure - Regulations on hazardous activities
• A Handbook for Group Leaders - Aimed at anyone who leads groups of young people on any kind of educational visit. It sets out good practice in supervision, ongoing risk assessment and emergency procedures
• Group Safety at Water Margins - Aimed at anyone who organises learning activities that place near or in water, such as a walk along a river bank or seashore, collecting samples from ponds or streams or paddling or walking in gentle, shallow water.

A link to the DfES website on 'Health and Safety on Educational Visits' can be found under the External Links panel.

Outdoor Education, Visits & Offsite Activities

To view any published Related Documents for this service you will require the appropriate software. To download this software please see our documents help page. All links to documents will open in a new window. To request documents and files in an alternative format please contact us using the contact information provided on this page.