What is Outdoor Horizons Scotland?

There are many charities which offer disadvantaged children one-off outdoor activities. This isn’t one of them. We are asking for contributions to pay for basic expenses for outdoor learning at schools that have no budget for this.

We want to remove some of the barriers to getting young people out onto the hills: the cost of transport, equipment, training and staff back-filling.

Funding will allow the hire of a mini-bus to take a few pupils into the Pentland Hills for a weekend. It will pay for the registration of students onto an Outdoor Leadership Training programme. It will go towards buying equipment such as hiking boots and sleeping bags that can be shared among all the pupils who are interested in going on expeditions for the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. And finally, to allow teachers to accompany these groups out of the classroom, they need to be back-filled and we would like to fund that cost too.

The children we want to help have leadership potential but often lack confidence in putting themselves forward. Many large schools can find discretionary budget for these activities. But smaller schools, where local authority budgets are also tight, inevitably have to prioritise core teaching.