School/Club Links

Orienteering in Schools

How many Schools offer Orienteering?

School Orienteering Competitions

Mapping in Schools

Young Leader Award

Guidelines for Orienteering in GCSE PE

Orienteering in the National Curriculum

Information on Orienteering Coaching Courses

British Schools Orienteering Association

Orienteering in Schools

Orienteering is now a major sport in education meeting the developmental needs, both physical and mental, of pupils. This sections offers support to teachers including:

Why offer Orienteering in School?

How does Orienteering fit into School?

• As an element in the National Curriculum for PE, Geography and Mathematics
• As an adventure activity which is cheap to set up and run
• As a recreational activity for outdoor activity weekends
• As a sport with school championships at every level

Why is it fun?

How many schools offer orienteering?

Orienteering is now very popular in all varieties of schools; in a survey in 2006 orienteering was placed 16 in the list of activities provided during the academic year and this does not take account of orienteering often being classed as ‘Outdoors/Adventure’ sport which is ranked 13. It is also significant that orienteering has risen in availability from 46% of schools offering it in 2003/04 to 55% of schools in 2005/06.

Schools offering access to sports

Base: All schools (03/04 – 6,574; 04/05 – 11,498; 05/06 – 16,882)

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School Orienteering Competitions

Orienteering can take many different forms and can happen in many different places from school grounds to country parks or mountain forests. Competitors navigate their way round a series of control points in sequence or tackle a scatter of controls within a given time.

After events, pupils like to mark up their routes on their competition maps and discuss their experiences with friends. Teachers can organise activities on site or in local parks or take pupils further afield to attend inter-school competitions or club events. It’s also easy to plan indoor activities like map relays and quizzes to reinforce map literacy and motivate pupils to learn more.

British Orienteering provides a comprehensive network of weekend fixtures, coaching awards for all levels including teachers and an incentive scheme called the National Badge Scheme which encourages children to move up the competition ladder as they gain experience and confidence. There are events held in all parts of the country almost every weekend and schools competitions at local, county and regional level are organised on junior-friendly terrain often in urban areas, with a British Schools Orienteering Championships every November.

Choosing the right course

School children should start with a beginner’s course of 1 to 2km on paths. This is called a White or Yellow course under the British Orienteering colour coded system. With practice, on a school grounds map or a local permanent course, pupils can quickly gain experience and move up to longer and more difficult courses if they wish.

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Mapping in Schools

Guidelines on how to produce schools maps are available at:

• British Orienteering School Mapping Specifications Release 1
• OCAD is a mapping programme, an older version is available free to download at: http://www.ocad.com/en/downloads.htm you will also need a ‘Symbol Set’ for school mapping for the version you download, these are available, free to use, from:
  • OCAD 9 Symbol set for map scales 1:250 - 1:2500
  • OCAD 8 Symbol set for map scales 1:250 - 1:2500
  • OCAD 7 Symbol set for map scales 1:250 - 1:2500
  • OCAD 6 Symbol set for map scales 1:250 - 1:2500
  • OCAD 9 Symbol set for map scales 1:2500 - 1:4000
  • OCAD 8 Symbol set for map scales 1:2500 - 1:4000
  • OCAD 7 Symbol set for map scales 1:2500 - 1:4000
  • OCAD 6 Symbol set for map scales 1:2500 - 1:4000

The symbols sets, once downloaded, should be copied to the relevant OCAD Symbols folder, typically C:\Program Files\OCADx\Symbols, where x is the version of OCAD installed.

The Symbol Sets should then be available to use in OCAD when opening with file "New" command.

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Young Leader Award

The Young Leader Award is a new course developed for 14-19 year olds who want to develop and learn coaching skills. Aimed to fit in with the Junior Sports Leader scheme the award encourages participants to work with younger children and to teach them the basics of Orienteering. The course:

Course Details

Tutor Pack

The pack includes lesson plans, all resources, candidate handouts and the 1st year’s registration fee.

(Annual renewal fee £10) - Tutor Pack Cost - £40 (Inc P&P) available from British Orienteering Office.

Candidate Certificates

Each successful participant will receive a certificate to show they have completed the course. Certificates cost £1.00 each (Inc P&P) and can be ordered in bulk.

Further information about the course is available from Regional Development Officers who can be contacted through British Orienteering.

Guidelines for Orienteering in GCSE PE

The Guidelines for Orienteering in GCSE PE have been produced by British Orienteering to assist teachers in meeting the requirements and terminology of the National Curriculum Orders for Physical Education for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.It is not intended to be a definitive syllabus for the orienteering activity area of GCSE Physical Education.

The Guidelines can be found at: Guidelines for Orienteering in GCSE PE

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Orienteering in the National Curriculum

For details of books and resources about teaching orienteering please see the publicity section.

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Information on Orienteering Coaching Courses

An outline of the Coaching Awards available through British Orienteering can be found in the coaching section of the website as can a schedule of coaching courses.

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British Schools Orienteering Association

The British Schools Orienteering Association (BSOA) exists to promote, through information, advice and support, the development of all forms of Schools Orienteering including schools' site and park activities; navigational challenges in the countryside and orienteering competition models. Navigational skills are developed through map and compass exercises. Contact with schools is normally through PDMs, SSCo and individual teachers.

BSOA provides discounted orienteering equipment offers for schools and colleges, a network of regional contacts for advice in starting and developing orienteering within school as well as advice and information on training courses.

BSOA has increasingly developed links with the national governing body of the sport, British Orienteering, and became an Association of that organisation in 2003. It now has representation on their Council and all other relevant committees. It is also represented on the National Council of School Sports and through this the International School Sport Federation. The BSOA sends around 40 young athletes to the World Schools Orienteering Championships which are held every two years.

BSOA membership continues to grow and in 2006 exceeded 500 schools and colleges. It is playing a pro-active role in monitoring the progress of the British Schools' Score Championships and in promoting school leagues and other inter-school competitions.

Orienteering is an important vehicle for delivering the Outdoor Adventurous Activity (OAA) within the English National PE Curriculum as well as providing the opportunity for cross curricular links with Maths, Geography and Citizenship Studies. Likewise it offers an exciting multi-dimensional extra curricular activity.

The BSOA is continually looking at new ideas and developments to make the sport more attractive to schools and their pupils. It recently played an important part in developing the National Competition Framework for Schools Orienteering which is now available to Competition Managers throughout the country.

You can see more about British Schools Orienteering Association and the services they offer at their website: BSOA

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