Monday 11 May 2015 Pupils at Rose Court, the nursery and pre-prep department of The Grammar School at Leeds, are bucking the trend for relying on technology to find your way around. On the day that the Royal Institute of Navigation issued a warning about the decline in map reading skills as we rely more and more on satnav and smartphones, year 1 pupils at Rose Court were busy enjoying an orienteering day on the school field. Building on the basic map skills they had been doing in geography, the whole year group spent the day outdoors, using what they had learned about maps, plans, routes and keys to complete lots of different activities. Working in pairs and teams of five, the children mixed with other classes and made new friends as they worked together on problem-solving games and activities aimed at developing their speed and coordination skills, as well as seeing some real orienteering maps. Andrea Evans, year 1 coordinator, said: “The idea of the day was to allow the children the opportunity to apply some of the mapping skills they have learned in the classroom into a more ‘real’ situation. They were all highly engaged in the tasks and everybody could succeed at something.” General Primary News
