Mr Barrington Howard CGeog

Biography

Memo: GO: Barry Howard has been hillwalking since his teens in 1960's, leading his first educational visit in 1973; he qualified as a teacher in 1975. In 30 years he has led over 160 residentials and expeditions and in excess of 2,500 day courses. In 2002 he was awarded the Silver Medallion of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust for Research in Adventure Training & Schools' Educational Visits. Currently he is the EVC for the largest school in Essex. For a full biography go to www.huntertraining.zoomshare.com Barry is Director of Hunter Outdoor Training, an outdoor education and training company based in Leigh on Sea, Essex. He was a geographer teacher for over 30 years, including a Head of Department, in secondary education. His specialism was and still is fieldwork techniques, having led courses across the UK and in Iceland. After significant lobbying he persuaded the school to establish a new Outdoor Education Department which saw every one of the 1800 pupils undertake timetabled outdoor pursuits. This was repeatedly praised in three successive Ofsted inspections, and gained recognition from the Institute for Outdoor learning, and The British Sports Trust. In 1997 Barry was appointed Britain's first 'Outdoor Education Champion' by the then National Association for Outdoor Education. A major work has been compiling and maintaining the first UK Educational Visits National Accident Register. Barry is a Churchill Fellow (2002). This included incorporating his accident research in a study of Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish education systems' visits safety. To date Barry has led over 170 residential courses and expeditions, and over 3,000 day courses. Over 2000 young people pass annually through the residential centre that he manages. The most recent (2008) initiative is being appointed Project Manager for a Centre of Excellence in Outdoor Education in south Essex, which includes a fully curriculum-linked investigation of a school site as a living environmental laboratory.