The Junior School programs are appropriate to each year level and build on the learning that takes place in the classroom. Students develop their skills, knowledge, and experience in terms of minimal-impact practices, bushcraft, camp cooking, camping, team work, bushwalking, canoeing, navigation, environmental awareness, and sustainable living practices.

Early Learning

Early Learning Elphin (3-year-olds) has an intensive program that focuses on learning through outdoor play. The Education Outdoor experiences at Scotch Oakburn College build on this outdoor play and adds a taste of what some of the future Education Outdoors possibilities might involve in the nature play experience. The program focuses on nature play-based learning with a series of fun, interactive activities led by the Education Outdoors team in conjunction with class teachers. Parents are encouraged to be involved in sharing the excitement and learning with their child.

Early Learning Erina (4-year-olds) enjoy Bush Learning in the College Wetlands. Students enjoy exploring the nature and animals that live in the Wetlands, while providing an opportunity for students and parents to share time in nature together.  Learning experiences will include exploring the wetlands, cooking marshmallows on an open fire, social interactions through fun activities and making connections in the outdoors to their learning, skills, and overall understanding.

Prep Wetlands Explorers

Prep students are involved in an enjoyable one-day program at the Scotch Oakburn Park Wetlands. They are guided through an adventurous day looking at the change in environment, seasons and habitats. Students spend a day of investigations and discovery in the waterways, the grounds and the skies exploring interactive, nature-based activities through play. They learn to look after all of their own belongings and their personal protection whilst being in an outdoor environment.

Year 1 Season Seekers

The Year 1 ‘Season Seekers’ Program consists of a one-day field trip to the Scotch Oakburn Education Outdoors and Environmental Centre, at the Valley Campus.

The Learner Attributes of Curiosity, Collaboration and Self-regulation are encouraged and promoted throughout the program.

Students explore and take part in outdoor learning activities such as environmental games and exploring the Valley Campus natural environment, exploring the Veggie Garden to understand the role worms play in the process of composting, the seasonal cycles of produce, including a variety of apples, working together to plant seedlings, understanding the seasons and exploring how seasons affect plants, trees, and leaves, Bush Art, collecting, exploring, and investigating aquatic life in ponds and much more.

Year 2 2gether

Students explore what it means to work well in a team and to form a healthy, functioning social group. They are introduced to some basic  Outdoor skills and spend their first night sleeping over on a school program in the familiar space of the College oval.  develop some basic Education Outdoors skills such as bushwalking, water safety, and learning about our surrounding environment. The program will focus on developing co-operation and teamwork skills.

Year 3 A Sense of Place

A sense of place is designed to establish and foster a connection for Year 3 students to the Valley Campus. It is the student’s first overnight residential experience.

Students develop greater confidence to explore a range of activities in nature. They observe plants and animals in their natural habitat and learn about alternative cultural ways of knowing and understanding nature, including Tasmanian Aboriginal perspectives of landscape and sustainability.

Through experiential learning, students identify healthy foods that support outdoor activity and develop greater self-reliance and stronger decision-making regarding personal health and safety.

Students exercise personal responsibility through participation in group tasks that provide basic human needs such as food, shelter, and hygiene.

Year 4 Forest Dwellers

The Forest Dwellers program focuses on increasing the independence skills of students in a Forest Environment. Students in Year 4 participate in a three-day Education Outdoors program in and around the forests of the Fingal Valley. The program introduces students to a number of additional Education Outdoors skills including fire lighting, tent setting and simple day walk preparation. Students explore the forest environment through play, art activities,  investigations and guided exploration. Throughout all experiential learning activities, students embrace concepts of diversity and minimal impact while developing and implementing Learner Attributes of Collaboration, Curiosity, Inclusivity and Self-regulation.

Year 5 Adventurers and Trekkers

Adventurers & Trekkers is a four-day Education Outdoors program based at the Valley Campus. Students take greater responsibility for their own well-being and participate in a variety of adventure and challenge activities including elements of the high ropes course, low ropes team building and group problem solving, bush cooking and bushcraft, landscape art, water activities and land care projects.  They make decisions and take on leadership roles within various group tasks throughout. Students rotate around three different campsites in and around the Valley Campus property, sleeping in tents and cabins.