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Outdoor Ed excluded from national curriculum 17-Apr-2012 At 4:48:23 PM kuu

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On 17/04/2012 anthonycuskelly wrote:
>I dunno kuu, there was a (20+) school group with topropes on something
>I wanted to lead at Easter: we had a quick chat, they were fine with me
>sneaking in for a quick lead, and the negative impact on my climbing was...
>nil. And, let's face it, if they're at as low a level as you're suggesting
>then they're going to be on short easy things.

Again I don't have an any problem with this kind of thing.

I went to Bushranger Bluff with a new climber and knowing there'd probably be one or more school groups there. We had great conversations with the kids, and instructors, and quite easily fitted ourselves in to climb routes they weren't using.

However (and this is for Dick Lodge), I still make the point that the group sizes usually involved in these exercises are not ideal. So the outcome is less than ideal. The 'instructor to pupil' ratio usually well exceeds what you would expect to observe if the "guide" were instructing a paying adult customer where it might be 1:2 or 1:3 at most.

Thus the 'kids' get a shallow introduction to rock climbing that questionably equips them to (safely) go further in the activity and maybe, on the upside, opens their eyes to the big wide world out there!