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Angling4Success was launched by the Energize Community Sports Initiatives charity in October 2008 to give very hard to reach young people an "outside chance" to re-engage with education and focus on a direction towards a more positive future. A4SOutdoors continues to build on the successes of Angling4Success, broadening the outdoor education and development activities beyond just angling.
Goals of A4SOutdoors
Within the framework of today's (mainstream) secondary education system, a recurring pattern of underperformance consistently manifests itself amongst c. 10-15% segment of young people. In many schools, this marginalised and disaffected group gets lost in the system, yields poor results for those individuals and impacts negatively on the learning potential of their peers in the classroom.
Established in 1998, the ethos of Energize has been to turn the potential of young people into success in Bedfordshire and the South East. Angling4Success builds on this ethos and strongly advocates the need for a parallel provision of experiential learning activities that play directly to the strengths of those young people aged 10-19, who are unable or unlikely to achieve in the traditional classroom and who might better achieve their potential in an outdoor setting.
It is designed to take young people out of the pressures of the classroom and away from any negative influences at school - We have often worked with gifted young individuals who are unable to pull away from a very destructive group of peers, within which success is considered uncool.
Taking them out of the classroom to keep them in Education
Angling4Success directly targets these individuals, explores other avenues to reinvigorate their personal development, re-engage and to (re-)awaken their desire to learn. Using an alternative curriculum and a mentoring framework, Angling4Success extends the borders of education outside the classroom (temporarily or as a parallel alternative) in order to keep the targeted young people within the wider process of learning and career development.
Angling4Success taps into the young people’s learning potential, using a mentoring approach and outdoor learning situations to teach them, among other things: planning, problem solving, teamwork, learning new skills and enabling them to achieve results through tenacity and patience. Success is rewarded through celebration of small victories (e.g. a photo of the young person holding the fish they caught!), measurable outcomes and accreditation (OCN and BTEC). Future progression routes are also always discussed.
The Paradox of Concentration
There exists a paradox that those unable to focus and learn effectively in the classroom can, more often than not, sit for hours on a river bank concentrating intensely and patiently solving the problem of catching fish. This conundrum inspired Energize to use angling as a "hook" for:
- learning new skills
- developing problem solving skills
- learning to be a team player
- growing self-esteem
- tangible self-development
- Helping others to learn
Angling4Success combines fishing & photography in a calm, relaxed, lakeside setting. Rather than produce world class anglers or photographers, the empahisis and underpinning principles of the course are to nurture re-engaged contributing members of society. (Any world class anglers and photographers who emerge form the programme will be suitably celebrated!)
Angling4Success has worked alongside Get Hooked on Fishing (ghof.org) - a national charity with over 10 years experience delivering Angling based inclusion projects - to run the Eastern Region of their national strategy to achieve the above.
Angling4Success is now established in its own right as a credible and innovative alternative curriculum provider and has expanded the remit outside of just fishing. A4S now includes: falconry, forest skills, waterside construction, fishery creation, allotment gardening and photography.
A Perpetual Mentoring Framework
While mentoring is provided for the whole group, the young people participating in the A4S programme are always engcouraged to mentor the younger or less able/knowledgeable students and soon enjoy the achievement and increased confidence of passing on their wisdom.
This initiates a perpetual framework of mentoring and a small number of candidates who show a particular promise in learning and passing on skills to others, will be offered the chance to return to mentor future projects. In the last year, two of our students have been taken on as employees.
The Target Audience of Angling4Success
The course is open to any young person aged 10 - 19 (although the model is equally applicable to those older than 19).
The Angling4Success outdoor experiental learning programme mainly targets those students, who are underperforming in the classroom or falling short of their potential. Whether pre-empting a potential exclusion situation or whether providing a structured learning experience for an already excluded young person, the A4S programme deliberately extends the borders of education outside of the classroom, in order to keep those young people in education. It captures the imagination of the young people and "reels them back in"to the learning process.
We would emphasise the value of early intervention. We have seen siginificant developments with young people in years 8/9 ahead of moving to Upper School (Bedfordshire) and ahead of the sometimes chaotic life as a teenager!
Student Centred Learning
Every learner referred to Angling4Success has his/her own story and respective objectives for intervention. Student profiles that have benefitted already from the Angling4Success course, on an alternative curriculum basis, are many and varied, but we have identified the following recurring characteristics and combinations thereof:
STUDENT A - LOW SELF ESTEEM and/or low expectations of ability and future prospects
STUDENT B - POOR LITERACY or other learning difficulties have led to disengagement from the mainstream education system. Battling against the classroom regime + low achievement fuels disruptive behaviour, aggression and (possible) exclusion.
STUDENT C - MANUALLY SKILLED individual who prefers the practical challenges and leans towards, e.g., construction/other outdooor industires and aspires to become a skilled tradesmen after school. Detached from academic aspirations.
STUDENT D - SHORT ATTENTION SPAN gets student into trouble in a large class. We have consistently witnessed the phenomenon that students who cannot sit still and concentrate for more than a few minutes in a classroom can sit uncharacteristically focused, lakeside for hours. This includes young people with ADHD.
STUDENT E - OUTDOORS TYPE who thrives in the outdoors and is likely to progress to agricultural college (Shuttleworth/Moulton/Easton) and/or chose a career in the outdoors.
STUDENT F - LOVES FISHING! and shows very little enthusiasm, passion or indeed effort for much else. This applies equally to animals and animal care etc.
SCHOOL HOLIDAY TARGET AUDIENCE
The course is open to any young people who would like to fish and learn fishing. We can offer as much or as little coaching as required. We provide everything except a packed lunch. Please call 01234 272101 for school holiday or weekend activities.
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