Outdoor Education is an integral part of the educational programme on offer at Mount Hutt College. We are nestled in one of the pinnacle outdoor environments in New Zealand, with a wide array of pursuits all available in our own backyard for us to experience and enjoy. In the summer months, we focus on white water kayaking, rafting and rock climbing, during spring and autumn, we pivot to mountain biking and tramping, while in the winter months, we focus on skiing, snowboarding and mountaineering.
Why is Outdoor Education important to Mount Hutt College and our community?
There are many reasons, but we strongly believe taking this subject will help develop tools for life, regardless of which future pathway students choose to go down. Our 3 leading characteristics that are developed include;
- Leadership
- Resiliency
- Organisation
Learning outside of the classroom has incredibly strong links to developing the skills required in our graduate profile, along with our PRIDE values and school goals. Through experiences in the outdoors, we develop:
- Passion for the outdoors.
- Respect for the environment.
- Integrity through honest actions.
- Diversity in a variety of pursuits.
- Excellence in personal growth.
Building connections through activities with ā mātou tāngata (our people) and at ā mātou whenua (our place) enables both students and staff to gain deep, rich connections with the Mid Canterbury region. Many of which will be remembered for a lifetime. Mount Hutt is currently blessed to have a strong group of staff and local contractors who facilitate our chosen disciplines. Using our people, means our students know the people they are working with, which have many positives and often leads to a greater experience.
How do we enable students at Mount Hutt to experience aspects of Outdoor Education?
We provide ākonga from year 7 to year 13 with the opportunity to experience a range of outdoor pursuits. Outdoor Education is explicitly taught as an optional subject from Yr10 - 13 and we believe we have one of the best courses available in New Zealand to do this in. We offer full year level camps in Yr8 and Yr10 which focus on experiencing an array of team building and leadership experiences in the outdoors.
Our Yr13 leadership camp, full school ski days and many adventure racing teams are some of the other opportunities within school hours, while we also offer some weekend based activities throughout the year for people to further experience and challenge themselves.
We believe these opportunities can provide pathways for students to grow and develop from participants of various pursuits, through to supporting facilitators who are then ready to take on the outdoors when they leave our Kura.