Year 5 Orienteering afternoon:

 

On Thursday 22nd February the pupils in Year 5 got the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of some of the greatest adventurers this proud nation has produced. Looking on with interest was Shackleton, Fiennes, Grylls and Brian Blessed to see if the next generation of hero’s could use an essential piece of kit, known as the map.

 

Over the last several weeks in topic Year 5 have been studying how to use and ordnance survey map. They have become familiar with the symbols used, the points of the compass and how to locate places using four figure gird references. Today was the day that they would apply this knowledge to a real life situation. 

To begin with the pupils were given a cunning crafted scale map of the school buildings and grounds. On this map were the letters A –Z spread over a wide range of locations. At each letters location would be an orienteering symbol they then had to match the symbol to the letter at the location. 

Year 5’s first challenge was to find the symbols that spelt out the name of our school. (Boarshaw.) Subsequently, they had to find the symbols that spelt their names and finally they had to find the symbols that spelt the name of their favourite thing or person. In the gorgeous late winter sunshine our brave heroes set out on their quest. 

This activity was designed to test our pupil’s ability to work in pairs and to accurately read a scale map. Additionally we were looking to see if they could plan their route around the letters to minimise the distance they needed to travel. After the activity I caught up with a member of year 5 Coral this is what they had to say about the experience. “It was really annoying at first as we struggled to get the map the right way around. However once to worked out to always have the map pointing the way we faced things became easier. By the end we started to plan where we walked so we didn’t have to keep going back on ourselves!” Today showed that not all learning has to take place inside a stuffy old classroom.