Meeting of the Parliament 27 March 2025
I am speaking on behalf of the Education, Children and Young People Committee. I begin by speaking about one of our members, Keith Brown, who recently joined the committee. On behalf of the committee, I offer our support and sympathies to him following the terrible news that we heard this morning about Christina McKelvie, as well as to Christina’s sons, Jack and Lewis, and her two grandchildren, Maeve and Leo. Keith has been rightly missing from committee meetings in the past couple of weeks as he spent precious time with Christina. We wish him all the very best to get through these challenging times, and I hope that we will welcome him back in the near future.
I thank Liz Smith, as the member in charge, for introducing the bill, which has given the committee the opportunity to discuss the important issue of how to ensure equal access to residential outdoor education for pupils. I also thank my fellow committee colleagues for their diligent work on the bill and all the individuals and organisations who provided evidence, either in person or by responding to our calls for views, especially the numerous pupils who wrote in to share with the committee their positive experiences of outdoor education.
The committee would also like to thank Scottish Outdoor Education Centres and its team, who all generously gave their time and shared their insights when the committee visited Broomlee outdoor education centre. Lastly, the committee is grateful to the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee and the Finance and Public Administration Committee for their work in scrutinising the bill and sharing their conclusions in a timeous manner so that we could reflect them when we were considering our report.
I say at the outset that the whole committee recognised the value of offering children and young people residential outdoor education. However, there was some divergence in views on how that should be funded.
Turning to the bill, as Liz Smith spoke passionately about, its main aim is to ensure that all pupils in state and grant-aided schools have the chance to experience at least four nights and five days of residential outdoor education during their school career. I should point out that the bill does not make it compulsory for pupils to attend residential outdoor education, but there must be an opportunity to do so.
During the committee sessions, many of us spoke about our experiences of going to residential outdoor centres as young people. I kept my story for today’s debate, because I did not want to introduce it at committee stage. I went to Abernethy. I attended a small primary school in Moray called Alves primary school, which was so small that we had to join up with Dallas primary school to have enough pupils to go. Unfortunately, my twin sister, who was in the same class as me, fell and broke her collarbone. I used most of my time on that trip trying to get some sympathy, saying that I had referred pain because my twin was in hospital being treated for her broken collarbone. That is one memory that I have from my visit to a residential outdoor centre.
The interest and passion that Liz Smith has shown were replicated by all members of the committee, who have had their own experiences of attending outdoor centres and know of constituents’ experiences of that. That has brought a lot to the debate. We saw that in our committee sessions and in the visits that the committee made as part of our scrutiny.
The stage 1 report makes it clear that the benefits for pupils and staff are considerable. They include building pupils’ confidence and developing the teacher-pupil relationship—that happens while they are attending an outdoor residential centre, but continues back in the classroom, sometimes for the entirety of a pupil’s time at school. We have also noted the improvements in attainment. Given those life-changing benefits, we said that all pupils should have the opportunity to experience residential outdoor education, which should be linked to the existing curriculum at some point in their school career. We welcome the inclusive approach that has been taken in the bill.