Reaching out to Teachers

Over the past 6 months SOA has been working hard to get orienteering into teaching institutions. By introducing future teachers to orienteering we hope they will be able to bring orienteering to their classrooms. This will hopefully increase awareness and uptake of orienteering. 

So far we have delivered an Introducing Orienteering (IntrO) course at Moray House, Edinburgh to future PE teachers. IntrO is a full day course which introduces orienteering to those with a teaching background. By the end of the course they should have the skills and confidence to deliver orienteering sessions in their environment. We have future plans to deliver an IntrO to PDGE students at Aberdeen University. 

Sometimes fitting a full day’s course into a packed university timetable is challenging. We have also offered orienteering taster sessions to universities. These sessions introduce the basic skills of orienteering. We have delivered a taster session to over 80 PDGE students at Aberdeen University. We have plans to deliver CPD to Primary student teachers in Dundee and Sports Coaching students at Robert Gordons University. 

We are also working to introduce qualified teachers to Orienteering. This year so far we have delivered an IntrO course to teachers in Deeside, CPD to PE specialists in Aberdeen and CPD to primary teachers in Edinburgh. We have further plans in Edinburgh to deliver CPD to PE specialists and ASN teachers. 

To further spread awareness amongst PE teachers the last couple of years SOA have attended the SATPE (Scottish Association of Teacher of Physical Education). This year we are delivering a workshop which teachers can opt to take part in as one of their activities. We will also have a stand at the SATPE marketplace during the lunch break where teachers can find out more about orienteering. 

Through working with teachers we hope that the combination of offering CPD, tasters sessions and IntrO courses will support getting more orienteering into schools.