Summiteer Skills. What's that then?

Want to inspire a class full of ‘persevering pioneers’, ‘curious climbers’ or ‘fearless adventurers’? Then read on to find out how our ‘Summiteer Skills’ have evolved to form the back bone of Steps 2 Summit.

This week, we have been editing and refining, what we are calling our ’Summiteer Skills.’ It has taken a long time to get these just how we want them but it has been worth the effort, as they are at the heart of the whole project.

From the outset, we wanted to support children in developing skills to help them to persevere, deal with failure, have high aspirations, be interested in the world around them and basically be a nice human being! It seems that the DfE have had the same thought, as a document has just been produced which talks about the importance of ‘character traits’. It was after reading this document that we had an epiphany! The Steps 2 Summit project was already doing all of this by itself, without even really trying!

How can you talk about the first double amputee to climb Mount Everest without talking about perseverance?

How could the qualities associated with honesty not crop up when learning about false summit claims and their repercussions?

How can the traits of curiosity and high aspirations be avoided, when you talk about a 14 year old who has climbed the seven summits?

Compassion and teamwork are pretty impossible to ignore when talking about any kind of mountain climbing.

Climbing a virtual mountain and learning about its geography, stories, history and culture provide the perfect platform to really put these crucial qualities at the centre. They do not need to be tagged on to a lesson that has been engineered specifically to teach a particular skill. They grow organically out of a subject which cannot help but teach them.

So, mission accomplished, we now have a set of ‘Summiteer Skills’, worded in a child-friendly way, linked to the displays, assemblies and lessons for each year group.

Look on the steps2summit.co.uk site for more information about how to transform your children into ‘Kind-hearted Crusaders’!