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Peak – Lands End to John O’Groats Charity Bike Ride

Peak has put together a team to cycle from Lands End to John O’Groats. Covering 970 miles this will see the team cover a series of breathtaking highlights from the southern end of Cornwall all the way up to the very top of Scotland.
With just 9 days to complete the ride covering over 100 miles a day, it is by far the toughest challenge they have taken on, not just as team but individually.
The challenge will take place from 4^th – 12^th September 2021 and we aim to raise £5000.

The Route:

The 970-mile ride highlights include:

• St Michael’s Mount
• Ride through Cheddar Gorge
• Crossing The Severn Bridge
• Chepstow castle
• Climbing Shap Fell
• Stunning Lake District views
• The Grampian Mountains
• Cairngorms National Park
• Conquering Glenshee and the Lecht Ski Hill
• John O’Groats and views of the Orkneys

The Team: The team is a mix of Peak employees & family friends including:

• Paul Ball – Peak MD
• Andy Gray – Manager at Peak Riders and Striders
• Craig Potter – Peak General Manager
• Jonathan Gillie – Headteacher – Peak Education Stoke
• Chris Bond – Assistant Head of Peak Education Stoke
• Ash Ball
• Steven Plant

Between busy work calendars and family commitments, we wish the team all the best with their training schedule and the final event.

The Charity – The Children’s Adventure Farm Trust:

Click here to find out more.

Get behind the team and show your support by giving a donation if you can. Every penny that you give will go directly to The Children’s Adventure Farm Trust and no donation is too small.

The Children’s Adventure Farm Trust, known locally as CAFT is based in Cheshire. With over 360 volunteers they provide free residential holidays and fun day trips for terminally ill, disabled and disadvantaged children from the North West of England and North Wales.

The team are putting the work in.  All is asked of you is to support them by donating whatever you can afford. CAFT do some amazing work and every child deserves a holiday. Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity, making it the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

Good Luck Team Peak!

To donate,click here!

Driving Home the Road Safety Message for Education and Outdoor Activity Provider.

A Staffordshire company has scooped a major new contract to deliver road safety training for an education and outdoor activity provider’s fleet of drivers.

More than 160 drivers at Peak Education and Peak Activity Services are being trained on an E-learning road safety course developed by Cheadle based Adrian Hide Consultancy.

Audley based Peak have four registered independent day schools in Cannock, Gailey, Stoke-on-Trent and Audley.  Along with six activity watersports and outdoor activity centres in the Cheshire, Staffordshire and South Yorkshire. The company ethos is Education through Adventure. Their drivers transport up to 100 pupils a day to and from the various locations along with towing trailers including 6m mobile climbing walls!

Adrian was commissioned to deliver a customised course to include a personal message from Peak’s Transport Manager, a module specifically for young drivers because of their team’s demographic and downloadable personal action plans and vehicle safety check forms.

Health and Safety Executive and Department of Transport figures show:

• Nearly three in ten collisions involve a young driver aged 17 to 24.
• One in five new drivers will have an accident within their first year of driving.
• More than a quarter of accidents will involve someone driving for work at the time of the incident.

Adrian who has more than thirty years working in road safety and delivering driver risk management services said:  I’m delighted to be working with Peak and providing their road safety training. Although I deliver face to face training as well, they needed something virtual so they could fit it around their working day. I’ve been able to tailor the course to specifically meet their objectives taking into account that many of their drivers are young and that demographic is more likely to be involved in an accident.

Adrian added: “Health and Safety law imposes duty of care responsibilities on employers, to manage work-related risk in all areas of the business, including driving activities. Sometimes employers don’t realise that they have a responsibility to help keep staff safe when they drive as part of their job. Figures show that one in four collisions involve someone driving for work at the time of the accident so you can see how important it is that employers support driver training.”

Peak’s Transport Manager Andy Foster said: “Road safety is of paramount importance to us not just for the students we transport but for our drivers too. I really feel that it’s out duty to ensure our drivers are as skilled as possible. We have a very young workforce and because we know that statistically you’re more likely to have an accident when you’re younger we want to make sure we give our drivers the best training possible.

“I’ve been looking for a virtual course for our staff to go on for a while when I came across Adrian’s work. He has been absolutely fantastic. He designed something specifically for us and nothing has been too much trouble. The feedback we’ve had from the drivers who have already completed the course has been brilliant. They’ve told us they already feel far more aware and are putting into practice the things they’ve learnt. We will carry on working with Adrian to deliver our training and have made his course part of our mandatory training for all new starters.”

Lauryn Winter, 18, Apprentice Inclusive Education Practitioner said: “The course has really opened my eyes. I’m not the most experienced driver yet but I honestly thought I knew what I needed to know to make sure I was as safe as possible. Adrian’s course has really opened my eyes, not only just about safety but about fuel saving and your carbon footprint. I’ve learnt lots and it was enjoyable too.”

For more information, please go to: www.adrianhideconsultancy.co.uk

Peak Expeditions is now virtual!

Over 450,000 DofE participants are not getting pre training due to lockdown! Peak can help with Online DofE Expedition Training.

In these challenging times it is proving difficult to train DofE expedition candidates to prepare them for expeditions later in the year. That’s where Peak can help with one of the countries first online Zoom remote training sessions!

Online Zoom training:

Instead of coming to you we can set up Zoom online training sessions to take your adventurers through the core requirements at a time and date to suit your school. We have developed a series of online resources including all course books and questionnaires with follow-up on-line support sessions to ensure that no content is missed!

Content will include all aspects of the Expedition Training Framework as laid out by DofE. This includes 10 comprehensive modules covering everything from Equipment, Food, Navigation, Route planning and more!

With over 20 years of experience, Peak are an Approved Activity Provider and we offer comprehensive Expedition packages that deliver online or classroom-based training and on-the-hill learning. These are aligned to the DofE Expedition Training Framework and take participants through all the required stages from preparation and training through to the Qualifying Expedition.

Find out more:

Choose Peak to run your DofE expedition for 2021 and we’ll now include the new online pre expedition training as part of the package.

For more information, contact Richard Lea, DofE Expedition Manager on 07967 570352, email [email protected] or click here

Save Outdoor Education Campaign!

Help us Save Outdoor Education!

We all remember the great school trips we had! Whether it be the day trip that cemented your friendship group or the residential where you first felt grown up and built your self-confidence up! What if these trips and the outdoor education centres that provide them disappeared? How would the next generation including your children and grandchildren get those great learning experiences and memories? What if we could collectively do something to stop that happening?

The good news is we hopefully can and we need your help!

Due to the current pandemic, Outdoor Education Centres are permanently closing with a grave loss to generations of UK children. We need you to help support the campaign to Save Outdoor Education!

Some facts from UK Outdoors:

• Outdoor education and residential centres have been prevented from operating, some receiving no income since March 2020 due to Government guidance preventing school trips for both day trips and residentials.
• By Spring 2021 over 2 million children will have missed out on educational visits at a time when the Government acknowledges wellbeing and mental health for young people should be a priority.
• Outdoor education trips and residentials provide vital lifelong learning with benefits including resilience and perseverance, adaptability and social awareness to name a few.
• Residential visits are shown to be the most impactful, the moment that changes many children’s lives across the country regardless of background.
• Around 50 Outdoor Education Centres have already closed or are at threat, with £500m loss in revenue so far.
• Up to 15,000 jobs may be lost by spring 2021 and 50% of outdoor education capacity will be lost.

That’s a lot of children’s wellies and hiking boots that have stood still and not been active for nearly a whole year!

We want future generations to continue to be able to experience the benefits of outdoor learning and make some great memories.

How you can help?

The Team at Peak want to help the industry through supporting the #saveoutdoored campaign and you can help us with minimal time and effort by doing the key three things below:

Share & Sign the petition:

If you do one thing today, please sign this petition to help get the campaign to 100,000 signatures. Once the petition hits 10,000 signatures it will be responded to and when we hit the big 100,000 it will be considered for debate in Parliament to help get Financial Support for Outdoor Residential Centres during the lockdown closure.

This will help make sure there are still outdoor adventures available for future generations so please hit & share the link to our petition.

Follow the campaign:

Follow, share and like the campaign on all social media including, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Search #saveoutdoored

Share a video:

Do you have a great memory from a trip to an outdoor activity centre? If you do, why not tell us about it by creating a brief video to share the experience. This will help build some great personal memories showing how important Outdoor Learning is. Post the video on social media,  sign off with “Please help support the Outdoor Education Centre sector” and use the #saveoutdoored and #peakoutdoored so that not only the campaign organisers can view your memories but also the team here at Peak!

Thank you so much for your help and ensuring our children have the chance at outdoor education for many years to come!

Team Peak.

We Are Good To Go!

In the world of Covid-19 that we are currently living in companies are doing everything they can to ensure that they are Covid-19 secure and we are delighted to announce that we have successfully applied for the Good to go certification!

“We’re Good To Go” is the official UK mark to signal that a tourism and hospitality business has worked hard to follow Government and industry COVID-19 guidelines and has a process in place to maintain cleanliness and aid social distancing.

You will find the following certificate now displayed at all 6 of our centres so you can be sure we are Covid-19 safe!