The three days educational trip to Gredos provided an opportunity for both Year 8 and 11 to experience the natural environment and enrich their curriculum and skills by going beyond the constraints of the classroom. In particular, this prepared them as future citizens to take care of resources and work towards a sustainable development of the planet.

The Year 11 programme focused on a number of skills for IGCSE, and a brief introduction to the future IBDP requirements. They performed community service by encouraging environmental responsibility by cleaning up the rural paths while on the way to their next activity doing fieldwork on the river Tormes.

This focused on the process of measuring the profile, discharge and the velocity of the river and learning to use sampling methods by using different instruments. The students also compared two rural settlements. Looking at the services and the main sources of income, agriculture and tourism. They also learned to interview local residents. This experience allowed the students to understand what rural communities had to face in their day to day lives. Also, the students were taught orienteering; the use of a map and compass and bearings practice in the surroundings of the Gredos Centre. Additionally, there were fitness activities including mountain biking and paint balling where team building was demonstrated.  During the evening, we played games including, cards, chess, trivial pursuit and charades.

In all this was a very compact three days which enhanced the students’ overall learning opportunities beyond the traditional environment at school and provided useful practical skills for the future.