Have you ever heard of Orienteering? So many followers ask us what it is, and why we do it, that we will tell all in this post......

Orienteering is a sport practiced in all Steiner Waldorf Schools. It is a race across country, through fields or forests, wherever the school is located. Participant teams must follow clues and use compass co-ordinates to find their way between clues. It is a strategic race against the clock, using maps and chartered courses to discover clues with cryptic explanations and more directions to race to the next instruction to lead teams on a thrilling and energetic sporting journey.

Is Orienteering just a sport though?

Well there are massive benefits besides the exercise; three or four students need to work together and co-ordinate and plan their routes. Orienteering teaches teamwork and leadership, as well as reinforces skills students are using in geography such as map and compass reading. 

Sometimes students get lost, becasue they have made a mistake with their mapping. What to do? They are forced to calm and center themselves, and work together to bring themselves back on the right track to relocate the clue they were headed for. Even more team collaboration and resilience are cultivated in these cases. Particpants learn to work in teams, and develop individual self-confidence and self-reliance. Particiapnts need to think critically, and plan in advance, in this exciting mental challenge to reach the finish line together as a team. Not easy at all for young ones.

Orienteering provides for character development in every sense of the word. Developing personal qualities students can carry forward into their world after lelaving school is what Waldorf Education is all about, and orienteering is just one of the activities used in Waldorf Schools to develop employable young people, capable of leading positive change in their communities.

At CEFZ School, Orienteering happens every Friday afternoon during sport. Students can choose their preferred sport for 6-week blocks, and Orienteering always has a waiting list of possible attendees. Not becasue of the character development though; just becasue it is good old fun.

Written by judi Palmer, September 2024