The classic year group residential hasn't evolved in decades.
Until now.
We get it. Some like a familiar, old school, tried and tested format - the daily carousel of adventurous activities, magnolia dorm rooms, a few wide games, a bit of water and mud and, perhaps, controversially, a dose of downtime for the teachers.
All good?
No, not really.
The classic school residential may not have changed in years. But the world has. And schools and educational leaders need to wake up to the fact that the humble end of year school residential is no longer fit for purpose. Residentials needs to work much harder to prepare young people for the challenges of our time.
Challenges such as:
The climate crisis.
Biodiversity loss.
Screen addiction.
Social anxiety.
Individual resilience.
The mental health crisis.
Disconnection from nature.
We no longer have the luxury of time in tackling these issues.
Our solution is simple.
We take students and teachers off grid and away from their phones. We reconnect them with nature. Actually, we totally immerse them in nature, for five full days. And we reconnect them with each other. We get them active, involved in hands-on conservation, learning about the world from great role models and showing them that, despite the challenges, there is hope.
We call it sparking active hope
And, the best part? Young people absolutely love it.
Put simply, we've created a residential programme fit for the 21st century.
Here's some recent feedback:
"My son really enjoyed his recent four days at the Bioasis as part of a school trip.
Living without tech, enjoying the outdoors including some very fun activities as well as some community focussed activities was a really positive developmental experience requiring them to think more widely about the impact they have on environments, certainly this is how he articulated it. He spoke very positively about the staff and the provision of food - despite him being a fussy eater. We are grateful to both Bioasis and the school for providing this experience."
"These students really got their money’s worth. Feel like you have a winning formula. You do such an important job in enthusing the next generation about the environment. Thanks and see you next year."
"This is the kind of field trip that goes way beyond clipboard investigations - actively teaching the wider skills required and giving an insight into what geography and biology are actually all about in the real world”.
So knowing all you know, the question is, what are you going to do about it?
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