Open Door Adventure School Trip

At Open Door Adventure, physical activity is combined with 'brain engaging' tasks. These tasks are designed to build personal skills such as self-awareness, self-esteem but also social skill development. Children and young people are engaged in activities that provide them with individual liberty to explore their own abilities, challenge their own inhibiters and push their boundaries, whilst operating in a group, learning mutual respect and tolerance.

Our experience and feedback confirm that our approach positively influences children in terms of their:
- Enjoyment of lessons
- Engagement with and understanding of nature
- Social skills
- Engagement with learning
- Health and wellbeing
- Behaviour
- Attainment

Open Door Adventure believes that whilst the focus is on physical activity, the engagement of brain is just as critical and we therefore have specific aims in delivering the activities we offer:

- Fitness ' some activities can be vigorous and sustained; others can require agility, flexibility and power

- Excitement & fun ' whilst controlled within a safe working environment, some activities do present an element of risk, whether perceived or real, but it is this that adds to the excitement of the outdoor experience. As children and young people discover they can cope with risk, fear and anxiety, many of them learn to be more self-sufficient and confident.

- Nature appreciation ' in a society where most youngsters are nature-deficit, having a
reduced human experience through lack of engagement with the natural environment.
Our activities take place in beautiful settings where the surrounding environment is the facilitator of the physical education

The values Open Door Adventure holds are passed on to the young people they train. These are ' Trust, Respect, Honesty, Courage and Integrity. These values are also the life skills, knowledge and attributes that each young person needs to develop to ensure a fulfilled life. At Open Door Adventure we ensure the experiences we provide enable children and young people to not only build confidence in their own abilities, but to also explore their personal boundaries. This is combined with tasks that mean they gain awareness of the importance of teamwork - through planning, communicating, identifying and delivering solutions to problems and navigating situations when things do not go to plan.

Bush-Craft - Learn to make natural shelters ' Improvised Shelters, Water Purification, Making Fire by Natural Methods, Pump Drill, Flint & Steel, Bow Drill and if we are lucky using the sun to light fires. If you're staying for a few days, we can organise additional sessions where we go into much more depth such as safety with Knife Skills, Foraging for Food, Fishing Hunting, and Forestry Skills

Whether it is on-site or 20 minutes away at our Water Sports Centre at Llyn Brenig at Open Door Adventure you learn practical skills that are technical and challenging - both personally and again in terms of social interaction and learning to work together. We offer canoe sailing, raft building, kayaking ' all of which comes with full instruction so that children can master the basic skills of staying safe and having fun in water, which in turn develops them personally but teaches them how to interact, depend and trust their group members.

With the River Elwy running through our grounds, the mountains of Snowdonia only 30 miles away and the coast just 10 miles, we are the perfect location to provide activities listed. Additionally we have our own natural cave and mine on site. The cave is a Site of Significant Scientific Interest and the mine provided the limestone that was used in the building of our accommodation Dolben Hall over 2 centuries ago.