AWE
OUTDOOR EDUCATION
Adventure, Wayfinding, Endurance
In an age where life experience for many children is shrinking to the confines of a digital screen, our ambition at Thomas’s College is simple: to run the best and most challenging programme of Outdoor Learning of any school in the country. That’s why we’ve created AWE: a programme of Adventure, Wayfinding, and Endurance to widen the horizon for every Thomas’s student and to share access with young people from schools across the country.
A centre-piece of AWE is Thomas’s Daheim: our own outdoor centre in the Austrian Alps, at the heart of a secluded mountain valley where our students are often the only visitors. This is adventure on a whole new level, where students experience the thrill of the wilderness within a secure environment managed by our dedicated and experienced team.
Alongside Daheim, we are developing partnerships with leading outdoor charities both to support uniquely rewarding and challenging experiences for our own students and to ensure others have a chance to share in the opportunities.
We run the Duke of Edinburgh scheme at all levels, which is hugely popular. Our students are always heading outdoors. That might be exploration in Richmond Park, taking on the Three Peaks challenge, out in the Lakes or the Highlands of Scotland.
Our intention is for every student to visit Daheim twice, and for our older students to have the adventure of a lifetime in the Himalayas alongside other ambitious expeditions.
There are many aspects of learning that are unique when it takes place beneath open skies and in an environment that challenges young people to find their own path and take care of themselves and others. We think there is no better way to instill self-reliance, energy, drive, profound respect for the natural world and sheer capacity for leadership.
