Our Aims
To provide the opportunity to enhance the following skill set for young people from all backgrounds:- Planning, organisation and fundraising
- experience of personal challenge and adventure
- Awareness of strengths, weaknesses and potential
- Individual initiative and independent thought
- Broadened Outlook
- Effective teamwork and leadership
- Sense of community
- Practical exploration and fieldwork skills
- Balance enjoyment with preservation of wild environments
- Formal reporting processes
BSES News
About us
“The Object of the Society is to advance the education of young people by providing inspirational and challenging scientific expeditions to remote, wild environments and so promote the development of their confidence, teamwork, leadership and spirit of adventure and exploration.”
The British Schools Exploring Society (BSES Expeditions) is a registered charity (No. 802196). The charitable aims of the society can be seen on the right hand side of this page.
Personal Development
We believe engaging young people in exciting activities to complete projects of real worth in a challenging environment where you depend on yourself and team members alone with no external assistance available is a powerful model for the sort of personal growth that is commonly absent from tradition education paths.
We have developed our own model for personal development encompassing a continuous review based upon individual goals and equip our leaders to deliver this in the field. The anticipated outcomes are based around the following nine virtues:
- Leadership
- Team Working
- Communication
- Group Management
- Risk Awareness & Management
- Organisation, Motivation & Discipline
- Fundraising Project Management
- Feedback
- Expedition Skills
Read more about BSES’s personal development model…
Adventurous Activities
Learning in the outdoors and the benefits of adventurous activities are becoming increasingly recognised as an effective tool for developing skills such as self-reliance, overcoming fear and adversity, responsibility for self and others, working as a team and leadership. This has been long understood within the outdoors scene and is rapidly gaining weight in mainstream educators and large business organisations within schemes such as learning outside the classroom (LOtC) and team building investment from large business recruiters such as Deloitte.
Wilderness Environments
It is a privilege to experience some of the most spectacular areas of the globe. Spending time away from modern technology in a remote environment forces everyone to learn practical skills, motivate themselves and organise their time effectively to live comfortably and complete fieldwork projects in a harsh environment. Failure to work as a team and develop the necessary expedition skills will have immediate and recognisable consequences for young people. These sorts of skills have been found to be readily transferable to studies and future careers.
Read more about our future expedition locations…
Fieldwork
The aim is to provide projects of real worth that will contribute to existing studies and a wider body of knowledge. General themes are centred around climate change, biodiversity and human interaction with the environment.
As well as completing studies planned by partner organisations and our own science leaders, young people are also encouraged to gather their own ideas and explore their own questions in the remote environment they are in.
Read more about the Fieldwork…
Outreach
BSES is strengthening its commitment to youth development by progressing our Next Generation project that targets the kind of young people that would not normally even consider joining an expedition or have the opportunity to do so.
We believe that the unique and powerful development benefits of wilderness expeditions are important for all young people, whatever their background.
In 2007 we welcomed two Young Explorers from our outreach programme. With five people on expedition in 2008 and a further seven in 2009 in the Himalayas, the Amazon and Greenland, we are hoping to bring on many more in the next generation...
Read more about our outreach commitments …
Leaders
It would not be possible to fulfil any of our organisational or charitable aims if it were not for the efforts of our tireless leader teams. All of our leaders are volunteers and bring current skills from various specialities, whether it be from working with young people, outdoor pursuits or an academic background.
It is the leaders that put the work in before, during and after expeditions to ensure their success and BSES is lucky enough to associate ourselves with some of the finest outdoor leaders in the country.
