Study Science, Maths and English at Go Ape

School Travel Organiser explores the opportunities available for school visits to Go Ape and what children can get out of their active experience.

Located in 30 parks and forests nationwide, Go Ape encourages schools to unleash their inner ape as they take on a number of different tree top experiences such as zip wires, wobbly crossings and rope swings.

What’s on offer?

Go Ape currently offers two tree top adventures; Tree Top Junior for children aged six to 12, and Tree Top Adventure for children over ten.

The Tree Top Junior course is designed for pupils of Primary school age and takes around an hour. Alternatively, there is the classic Tree Top Adventure for ages 10+, which lasts around 2-3 hours and includes more challenging obstacles.

National Curriculum links

Teachers can add on additional activities alongside the two tree top adventures to prolong their visit to Go Ape.

The activities and resources available tie in with Maths, English and Science, as well as Creative Design, PE, PHSE and Environmental Studies.

There are a series of educational resources, which be completed within an hour (Go Bitesize) or extended for longer periods of learning (Go Project).

PE, Science and PSHE

The Go Ape Healthy Living educational resource has links to P.E, Science or P.S.H.E studies. During this Go Bitesize activity, pupils are tasked with measuring pulse, breathing and recovery rates, followed by discussing how this affects the body and how it compares to other forms of exercise.

Should teachers want to undertake this activity as a longer Go Project, they can arrange for their pupils to alternatively design a Go Ape fitness test for new recruits. They will be encouraged to think about the type of tests that will be involved, monitoring the results and finding outliers in the data.

English and Art & Design

Pupils participating in the Go Create educational resource will read a selection of adventure stories where characters have to face natural problems or difficulties and make comparisons between the stories. They will be encouraged to discuss how characters can overcome specific issues, research well-known explorers, imagine the problems faced in a world where they cannot touch the floor, and imagine that Tree Top Junior is part of their journey. They will also be asked to map out their story.

Alternatively, for a longer project, schools can plan and write an adventure story where an explorer faces a natural disaster on their journey but successfully reaches their goal.

Maths

Mathematics activities that are available will develop data collection, presentation and analytical skills during stimulating real-life contexts. For example, the Go Investigate Money lesson plan requires children to use written methods for adding, subtracting and multiplying money to work out how much a trip to Tree Top Junior would cost individually, and then for the whole class – including coach hire and parking. They’ll be encouraged to use the additional Go Ape merchandise list to create problems involving money, and will then learn about exchange rates by working out how much the trip would cost in dollars.

The longer option introduces the idea that it costs around £60,000 to build a Tree Top Junior Course. Children will be challenged to ‘manage’ a Go Ape site, ensuring they make money. They will be encouraged to think about the data on staff costs, utilities, maintenance and average daily customers, as well as work-out losses, income and profit per week (with an optional resource sheet). The class will also work out how much money the course could make over a month and a year. They’ll also be asked how long it would take to cover the cost of building the course, and investigate whether or not they could make a profit by lowering the price, reducing the staff or closing during the week.

Further information

Teachers will find up to 15 free educational resources on the website, including Persuasive Writing, Design your own Go Ape Course, Adventure Stories, Collecting Data, Sustainability, Human Evolution, Measuring Trees and Shape and Space and Physics.

Teachers can order a schools pack from the Go Ape website, which includes examples of learning resources, FAQs, and a school trip itinerary.

Educational consent letters and risk assessment forms are also available on the website.

For more information call 0845-643 1517 or visit www.goape.co.uk/schools-junior.