Learning outside the classroom

Learning outside the classroom (LOTC) is defined as: ‘the use of places other than the classroom for teaching and learning’ (LOTC manifesto, 2006).

Learning outside the classroom can improve academic achievement, make learning more engaging and relevant to young people, nurture creativity, reduce behaviour problems, and improve attendance and young people’s attitudes to learning.

While a great part of the teaching in supplementary schools takes place in classrooms, pupils regard the learning that takes place there as different from learning in mainstream classrooms. Learning outside a classroom is very often less formal and more personalised.

A number of supplementary schools also organise weekend and holiday courses and excursions or trips, which take pupils outside their formal classrooms.

The Herbert Museum in Coventry developed an innovative project to explore issues around the transatlantic slave trade and its abolition. Young people from two Black supplementary schools explored the facts and significance of the slave trade through a range of creative activities, including visits to museums, the creation of an exhibition, and workshops with artists.

For more information, visit www.theherbert.org