ABOUT US
Our founder, Will Huntington, is an experienced Primary Teacher, PE Leader & Trainer. Below, he explains how Cross-Curricular Orienteering helps schools meet four statutory expectations:
1) Schools must provide a minimum of 30 active minutes per day
2) Schools must teach the statutory Outdoor Adventurous Activities strand of PE
3) Schools must deliver and maintain a broad, balanced curriculum
4) Schools must work rigorously to raise standards across school
Our founder’s message:
Cross-Curricular Orienteering was born from my passion for teaching and helping children lead active lifestyles. With the rise in sitting times, due to smart phones, tablets and gaming consoles, and increase in poor mental health amongst our younger generation, I believe it’s more important than ever that schools take a scientific approach to raising standards, putting health and well-being at the forefront of learning. Cross-Curricular Orienteering gives schools the resources and strategies to provide effective active lessons, meeting a multitude of curriculum and DfE demands:
Will Huntington
Founder,
Experienced Primary Teacher, PE Leader & Trainer
Scheme of work ✅
Mapping ✅
Course set-up ✅
Staff training ✅
Orienteering fitness diaries for school’s 30 active minutes a day provision ✅
Blueprints for running self-sustainable intra- and inter-school competitions ✅
Annual online updates and support ✅
🏃♂️🏃♀️👨🏫 👩🏫 🏫 🌍 😄
Our founder, Will Huntington, is an experienced Primary Teacher, PE Leader & Trainer. Below, he explains how Cross-Curricular Orienteering helps schools meet four statutory expectations:
1) Schools must provide a minimum of 30 active minutes per day
2) Schools must teach the statutory Outdoor Adventurous Activities strand of PE
3) Schools must deliver and maintain a broad, balanced curriculum
4) Schools must work rigorously to raise standards across school
Will Huntington
Founder
Experienced Primary Teacher, PE Subject Leader & Trainer
Our founder’s message:
Cross-Curricular Orienteering was born from my passion for teaching and helping children lead active lifestyles. With the rise in sitting times, due to smart phones, tablets and gaming consoles, and increase in poor mental health amongst our younger generation, I believe it’s more important than ever that schools take a scientific approach to raising standards, putting health and well-being at the forefront of learning. Cross-Curricular Orienteering gives schools the resources and strategies to provide effective active lessons, meeting a multitude of curriculum and DfE demands:
1) Schools must provide a minimum of 30 active minutes per day
Inactivity amongst our younger generation has become a very real concern. Calls from the chief medical officer for schools to provide a minimum of 30 active minutes a day is a clear response to the problem. Children are spending more time sitting than ever before. The rise of smart phones, tablets and gaming consoles has made it easy for children and families to slip into inactive lifestyles. In addition, the rise in kidnappings over recent decades has also meant parents are not willing to allow their children out to the local park or field, unsupervised. It’s now imperative that schools respond to this problem, providing a more active working day for their pupils. After all, schools should be the safest place for children to explore. Cross-Curricular Orienteering helps schools achieve this in Maths, English, PE and across the curriculum. In addition, our resources can be used during break times, lunch times, after school and as a stimulating alternative to the daily mile; our red “PE and Fitness” orienteering course allows children to develop fluency with essential fitness exercises. When they orienteer around the red “PE and Fitness” course, they have exercises to perform such as squats, burpees, lunges and more. These exercises, done regularly, will stick with the children for life giving them skills and habits to live and maintain an active lifestyle. Countless studies have proven that regular, daily exercise improves the brains concentration, retention and recall; let’s take a scientific approach to raising standards across school (see below – raising standards: the old way vs the scientific way).
2) Schools must teach the statutory Outdoor Adventurous Activities strand of PE
In 2014, when the new National Curriculum was introduced, PE leaders across the country were faced with the challenge of introducing the statutory Outdoor Adventurous Activities strand of PE into our schools. Orienteering immediately presented itself as the best way to do this. I thought to myself, “If children mastered reading the map of their school grounds, they could learn outside and be active every day.” Our Cross-Curricular Orienteering scheme of work follows a linear progression approach allowing all children to develop and master reading the map of their school grounds. This underpins and lays the foundations to then deliver quality active lessons across all subjects for the rest of the year.
3) Schools must deliver and maintain a broad, balanced curriculum
Time in school is precious – there never seems to be enough of it. With the constant increase in learning content and the pressures of SATs, it is a challenge, a great challenge, to deliver a broad, balanced curriculum. Cross-curricular learning is extremely valuable to ensure we deliver this expectation.
In 2014, I had my LIGHTBULB MOMENT: “Why just have orienteering signs with a letter or a number to record upon discovery? Let’s link PE, orienteering and active learning to the rest of the curriculum!” So, it began, with the help of Maths leaders, English leaders and other subject leaders, we finetuned orienteering and active learning for schools, making it cross-curricular, purposeful and more valuable than ever.
4) Schools must work rigorously to raise standards across school
Teaching year 6, I know all too well that Maths, English and SATs can take over our priorities and often cloud the reason why we teach. Personally, I didn’t get into teaching to become a slave driver in a factory designed to make “sitting robots” pass Maths and English tests. I got into it to help make a difference and provide direction to shape lives for the better. Thankfully, my mentors have always shared this same opinion. Unfortunately, some don’t but I “get it” – schools are judged by a week of tests which only assess these two subjects.
However, when it comes to raising standards, I believe we should listen to the studies, listen to the science and step out of our comfort zone (as we would teach the children to). If we could improve the children’s concentration, retention and level of engagement then surely, with effective teaching, standards would rise?
Raising standards: the old way vs the scientific way
The Old Way
Pre-SATs
“This term, with SATs coming up, we need to do double Maths and English. We need to ‘play the game’.”
“Really?”
“Yes! Maths and English all morning and then Maths and English all afternoon. The children need to sit down all day every day until the SATs are over and practise tests. In fact, we will even do before and after school SATs clubs. And while we’re at it, let’s do a SATurday school as well.”
“OK – I’ll get my teaching assistant set up in the photocopier room for the next 3 months!”
Post-SATs
“Our results could have been better! Why did our Maths pass rate drop?”
“The children don’t do enough test practice lower down the school!”
“Yes – that’s it! Let’s get years 3, 4 and 5 training for the tests as well! They need to be able to sit down for hours and be able to rattle through the tests for four straight years. Then we will get our best results ever! Get them on the factory line!”
Now the above is a rather extreme and exaggerated (I hope) approach to raising standards. But this approach happens. Double Maths, double English, before and after school SATs clubs, SATurday schools – I’ve seen it all. I’ve even endorsed these approaches. Why? Out of fear, inexperience and presumption that they work. Do they improve the children’s concentration and retention? Do they engage the children? Do they give them a love for learning? Do they make children excited to come to school? Do they improve behaviour? Do they improve wellbeing? No.
The Scientific Way
“Did you know that increasing daily activity in school will improve the children’s concentration, retention and recall?”
“Really?”
“Yes – leading health professionals have told us this for over a decade.”
“Great. Let’s do it! More active PE sessions, break times and lunch times?”
“Yes. And more active Maths and English lessons. Let’s get the children moving for at least one lesson every day. Little and often is the way!”
“What about the other subjects?”
“Those too – active lessons across the curriculum!”
“Brilliant – so we can actually teach them habits to be active and healthy rather than just telling them?”
“Yes. We will reduce the amount of time the children are sat down and increase the amount of time the children are moving and exercising.”
“Just in year 6?”
“Definitely not – we need to do this throughout school and establish a culture where we put health and well-being at the forefront of learning. An active lesson a day keeps Ofsted away!”
I’ll let you decide which approach wins but one thing is for sure… We’ll be here at Cross-Curricular Orienteering to support any school wishing to take the scientific approach.
Register Your Interest
What teachers, headteachers & pupils say...
