Trips, Visits and Enrichment

 

Aims 

We strive to enable and encourage all students to enrich their educational experience during their time at Carterton Community College, to bolster their academic studies but also to develop their cultural capital, broaden their horizons and gain new skills and experiences that will benefit them in the short, medium and long term. 

To this end we run a varied program of extra-curricular activities, off-site educational visits and residential experiences to local, regional, national and international destinations. 

 

After School Enrichment Program 

Subject Specific Enrichment

Each faculty and course runs their own subject-specific educational visits, either on or off-site, and the changing nature of exam board specifications and other factors means that these are not always the same year on year, but some recent examples of visits include:

  • The Victoria Apollo theatre (Performing Arts)
  • Hengistbury Head (Geography fieldwork)
  • Rutherford Appleton laboratory (Science)
  • The Houses of Parliament (PSHE)
  • The Big Bang Fair (Science)
  • An Inspector Calls – visiting theatre company (English)

 

Careers Enrichment

In addition to this, we offer a series of careers opportunities to cement our award-winning advice & guidance provision, many of these off site. Some recent examples of these include:

  • Reading University service students visit
  • Mock trial competition
  • National Apprenticeship Show visit
  • Bremont Watches factory visit*

*We are proud to be working with The Jon Egging Trust to provide enrichment opportunities for our students which includes visits to facilities such as Bremont Watches and other local & regional sites. 

We also run a full program of careers activities within the school day which includes visiting speakers (for example, recent vocational talks from RAF professionals), STEM competitions (including the recent bottle rocket construction competition between houses) and other activities.

 

Residential Experiences

A particular strength of ours is the extensive residential program that we offer, making strenuous efforts to enable students from all backgrounds to access them. Across their seven years with us, students have the choice of attending residential experiences that underline the learning from across the curriculum but also develop skills that the taught courses sometimes do not focus particularly on. These visits also develop the cultural capital our students need as they move on to become truly global citizens. The experiences start with residential in the local area and progress right up to 15 days in Southeast Asia. The opportunities include:

  • Year 8 Bushcraft week (Oxfordshire)
  • Year 9 GCSE prep/outward bound week at Glasbury (South Wales)
  • Key stage 3 & 4 languages visit (France/Germany)
  • Key stage 4 school expedition (for 2023, Thailand)
  • Madrid sixth form cultural visit (Spain)
  • CERN sixth form visit (Switzerland)

 

Duke of Edinburgh Award & Outdoor Education

We start our program of outdoor education with the year 8 Bushcraft week, and build on this by offering our students the chance to participate in all levels of the globally-recognised Duke of Edinburgh Award. Students typically opt to follow the programs in the years as follows:

  • Bronze award – Year 9
  • Silver award – Year 10
  • Gold award – Year 12 & 13

We are lucky enough to have developed a highly skilled team of award leaders and assessors who can guide students through the four sections of the award – skills, service, physical education and expeditions – and help them achieve their awards which can greatly assist them in their future lives. 

In addition, we are. developing our work as a certified provider for Hill & Mountain Skills in conjunction with Mountain Training England and will be running out first courses in 2021/22 in the mountains of Snowdonia.