WHAT WE DO
PARADVENTURES will work with any group or organisation which
includes or represents disabled people to devise and deliver outstanding safe,
life-enhancing activity adventures in the outdoors.
PARADVENTURES’ portfolio of expertly delivered, fully accessible activities also includes John Muir Awards, Curriculum for Excellence and
Duke of Edinburgh Award expeditions.
The John Muir Award is an environmental award scheme focused on wild places. It helps people connect with, enjoy and care for wild places. It's non-competitive, inclusive and accessible.
The John Muir Award invites you to:
Discover a wild place
This can be your school grounds, a local park, a beach, woods, a river, a mountain or a national park.
Explore its wildness
Experience, enjoy and
find out more about
your wild place(s).
Conserve it
Take some
practical action and
personal responsibility.
Share your experiences
Let others know what you've been up to, what you've achieved and what you've learned.
Who's it for?
It's for people of all backgrounds - groups, families and individuals:
a genuinely diverse cross-section of society participates.
It is ideally suited for those participants working at later stage of primary education and beyond
(year 4 and above in England and Wales; 2nd level in Scotland).
The John Muir organisation has created a Family Award that welcomes involvement by people of all ages,
including younger children, as part of a family group.
John Muir Awards encourage adults to get involved too. There is no upper age limit.
Little did we know, when PARADVENTURES started providing outdoor, adventurous and residential experiences for children and young people with additional support needs, that our aims, values and ethos would be so closely linked with the aspirations of the Scottish Government’s Curriculum for Excellence. We also did not know that what we have always cared passionately about would become National Policy: GIRFEC - Getting It Right For Every Child.
Underpinning the curriculum are four principal capacities. It is intended that, through engagement in the curriculum, each child in Scotland will build these capacities – but the pupils with whom we work need extra support to access opportunities that most of us take for granted.
We are proven experts in creating safe, fun and rewarding learning experiences in the outdoors
that truly help to build, in these pupils:
PARADVENTURES can support several subject areas within the curriculum.
Numeracy and Literacy, fundamentally and vitally important, are thoughtfully structured and supported.
NUMERACY
We use navigation and journeys to support numeracy, as co-ordinates and calculations of speed time and distance
all create the chance to work with and use numbers.
LITERACY
Our review and sharing activities provide excellent ways to support literacy.
We all regularly discuss the aspects of our adventures that make them so exciting -
but not just what we’ve seen and heard as we make our way through the breath-taking outdoors;
we explore our feelings and thoughts too.
All this encourages expression, talking and listening.
PEOPLE, PLACE, ENVIRONMENT, HEALTH and WELLBEING
Vitally important developmental social subjects are also reflected in our activities,
especially People, Place and Environment.
Perhaps where we provide the greatest benefit to the curriculum is in Health and Wellbeing (HWB).
PARADVENTURES can support schools to evidence every significant aspect of the HWB subject area and reach the key benchmarks. More importantly, the pupil entitlements described in the curriculum’s Principles and Practice guidance can be met fully through engagement with PARADVENTURES. Disabled children face challenges to access and inclusion in almost every area of life; we have worked for many years to overcome barriers to accessing the outdoors. Health and Wellbeing Principles and Practice highlight partnership working. Working in partnership with PARADVENTURES will enthuse, encourage and support pupils in engaging with experiences and outcomes in many subject areas.
I CAN!
What PARADVENTURES passionately believes in, and this underpins all our activities is the I CAN …..approach to the curriculum. Moving through curriculum levels, we can facilitate a tangible transition from achievement to attainment. We use SQA personal development awards to frame learning experiences in a way that gains recognition for participants’ efforts. We can offer awards from SCQF levels 1-6, focusing mainly on: Residential experience N2; Taking Part in Outdoor Activities; Self-Awareness; Practical Abilities
The Scottish Government’s SHANARRI indicators underpin EVERYTHING we do. That’s:
Safe; Healthy; Achieving; Nurtured; Active; Respected; Responsible; Included.
Surely nothing is more important than “Included”?
DUKE OF EDINBURGH AWARD EXPEDITIONS
Paradventures Support Ltd. is an Approved Activity Provider, AAP, for Duke of Edinburgh Award expeditions at Bronze, Silver and Gold. We specialise in working with groups with additional support needs.
The award allows providers to make “reasonable adjustments” to enable people with all abilities to take part.
For PARADVENTURES and Paradventures Support Ltd. it’s all about the INDIVIDUAL
Part of our portfolio is the use of All-Terrain Wheelchairs – specialist, pioneering wheelchairs that we created and own. So, through consultation with the young people and their parents or carers,
and with our experience and the specialist equipment available to us, we are exceptionally well placed
to build in whatever reasonable adjustment is required
to allow that individual young person to achieve.