Senior School Outdoor Holistic Education
Outdoor education is at the heart of everything we do at Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi. In each of the different phases of our college we foster and promote a love and appreciation of the outdoors. It is interwoven throughout all of our curriculum areas from DUCKS to Senior School and it is an integral part of the holistic education programme that we run at Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi.
The Senior School teaching team continue to add great opportunities to our students throughout the academic year. Some examples of these opportunities include:
The Duke of Edinburgh International Award programme, which is currently open to Year 9, Year 10, Year 11 and Year 12 students, is an important element of the Outdoors Education programme at Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi. As part of the International Award programme students develop their skills of orienteering and map reading, personal survival, serving a community, camping and cooking in China and further afield such as Thailand.
Our IGCSE Geography students have just taken part in their Geography fieldwork and coursework studies which is also a part of our Outdoor education programme at Dulwich College Puxi. The IGCSE Geography course involves one piece of coursework which accounts for 27.5% of the final grade and immediately after this fieldtrip, students will complete most of their coursework. To ensure the students meet the requirements of the syllabus they must collect primary data that they can process, present and analyse. This year our students were investigating the local microclimate of the rural area around Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi and the surrounding urban environment of the Lujiazui, Finance & Trade Zone in Pudong, Shanghai. The Fieldwork study comprised of one day of taking temperature readings, wind direction readings and wind speed readings at two locations in Shanghai in September. It was a hugely successful day and students worked wonderfully as part of a team to gather and collate their readings.
Our IB students will also take part in their IB Geography Fieldwork and coursework studies this week. Our students will be able to apply and transfer their learning from the classroom to the field by taking part in our IBDP Geography Fieldwork and Coursework study on Rivers. The focus of our coursework will be on: How do the Fluvial Characteristics of a River Change with Distance from the Source?
The IB Diploma Geography course involves one piece of coursework which is compulsory, and which accounts for 25% for SL Students and 20% for HL students of the final grade. To ensure the students meet the requirements of the syllabus they must collect primary data that they can process, present, and analyze, and our students will achieve this by investigating a river in Moganshan, Zhejiang Province. Students from Dulwich College Shanghai Pudong will also be joining us on our Rivers Fieldwork trip this year as they too will complete their compulsory coursework on the same topic.
The academic year at Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi always finishes with an Outdoor education residential for every student in the Senior School, our much-loved ‘Challenge Week’. The week-long residential for Years 7-9 has taken us to places all over China and beyond including Thailand. We have been to Guangxi Province, Fujian Province, Beijing, Inner Mongolia, and Sichuan Province to name just a few. During these fun filled outdoor activity weeks we take part in water sports, climbing, hiking, cycling and we also participate in a local community service project work, such as restoring an old Tulou in Fujian province.
Future developments for our Outdoors Education programme in Senior School also include a Ski trip, the Spanish and French Departments hope to run a wonderful outdoor activity residential trip to Spain and France to introduce students to Spanish and French culture and also to give students an opportunity to apply the Spanish and French that they have learnt in the classroom. The Science and Geography Departments are investigating a trip to Indonesia to visit the rainforests.
We are very proud of what we do at Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi and we will continue to learn from and enjoy the benefits of our bespoke outdoor holistic education program. We continually strive to inspire our students and make them responsible and conscientious world citizens; our wonderful outdoor holistic education programme allows us to achieve that.
