If you take a look at the school calendar or at our social media you’ll surely notice that the trips are an important part of the life at BSP. However, taking the students out of the comfort of the classroom has a deeper and more sophisticated purpose and serves as the link between academics and practice. Here is how we combine both.

Project based learning

Each school trip is related to one or more of the current topics taught in class. After each trip, the students produce a project or a presentation. This way they not only demonstrate what they’ve learned at school but also what they saw, heard or did during the trip.

Take the Space Week as an example. For the occasion, the students visited the planetarium at the Natural History Museum in Plovdiv. They saw a movie about the Universe and afterwards had to make projects related to what they saw. As we speak, art displays are beginning to sprout around the school. Presentations are being given by classmates to each other. Debates have been conducted during Science lessons. And all these, in their core, are academics put to practice – learning by doing as a result of a school trip.

Practice based learning

Some school trips are devoted to the concept of learning by doing. There the students not only make projects but actually craft something tangible on the site. This helps them with understanding the practical side of a subject and how to derive parts from the whole.

One of these types of trips was the one to the archaeological site Maltepe. It was a part of the IPC topic at the time, where the students learned about ancient cultures and in particular how artefacts are dated. Since one of the most accurate methods of dating something is via the pottery of the time, the students took part in a pottery making and painting workshop. This way they learned why we use the pottery shards for dating a period and how the ancients made their own clay vessels.

Specialised learning

School trips can also compliment the lessons in the classrooms. If you have a Botany lesson, isn’t it best to hear all about plant life from a botanist? Or if you learn about the recycling properties of materials, isn’t it best to visit a recycling plant and hear all about it from the manager? All these specialized trips bring value to the learning process via employing professional specialists to aid the teachers.

The last such trip was a part of the PSHE curriculum of Grades 1 and 2. Currently, those students learn about the professions, which the adults occupy. For the purpose, the students visited the Regional court of law in Plovdiv. There they heard about the job of the judge and what it is about. This PSHE lesson seems simple but that’s because it is tailored towards 6-7 year olds. With time, such lessons evolve into career counseling sessions, which prepare the already older students for a successful life.

There you have it – the school trips are not simply conducted for fun. They have various purposes and contribute to the entirety of the learning process, so we can cover all aspects of a subject and offer a rich and engaging curriculum.