Our leadership course for schools and youth organisations runs on real responsibility, not theory. A journey-based course built around a single mechanic: every participant leads the group for a day, then sits in the debrief while the group tells them how it went. Runs from three days to a full expedition, for school leadership groups, bursary cohorts and youth development programmes.
Each morning a different participant takes the lead. They carry the route, the timings, the water plan and the mood of a group that is tired, hungry and does not always agree. Instructors stay close for safety but step back from the decisions, so the mistakes are real and survivable – a late start that costs the group its swim, a route call that adds an hour, a job nobody was asked to do.
That evening the group debriefs. The leader hears what worked and what did not from the people who had to live with it. The next morning someone else takes over, and yesterday’s leader watches from inside the group.
Most participants lead badly on their first turn and noticeably better on their second. That gap is the course.
“We are all better than we know. If only we can be brought to realise this, we may never be prepared to settle for anything less.”
Kurt Hahn, founder
The pattern repeats daily, which is what makes this leadership course stick. No two days are on the same ground, so no two leaders face the same problem.
3 to 21 Days
Mixed Terrain
Small Groups
These are the outcomes a school, funder or CSI partner can expect to see named in the course report, with an individual assessment written for every participant on the leadership course.
Confidence
Accountability
Communication
Our leadership course for schools suits any group where the gap is not ability but the chance to practise youth leadership. We are mobile and run programmes from bases across the country, so we can work close to the community a partner wants to reach.
Schools
Bursary Cohorts
Host Communities
Most partners fund one theme and add another in a later cycle. All three run in the same formats, on the same bases, and produce the same reporting.
For young people facing poverty, unemployment and limited opportunity. Hard but reachable challenges that leave each participant holding evidence of their own capability.
Mountain, river and coastal journeys with the practical skills that go with them – navigation, minimal-impact camping, reading weather and terrain.
A ten-day holiday camp for 14 to 16 year olds at Willow Point, Sedgefield, from 12 to 21 December 2026. Hiking, canoeing, high ropes and abseiling, with meals, gear and 24/7 supervision included.
Grade and orientation camps, leadership courses and President’s Award expeditions for learners aged 6 to 21, designed from your school’s own course brief. Centre-based or journey-based.
Grade camps and leadership expeditions for Grades 6-12, designed around your school’s goals, with a feedback report for every programme.
The full overview of how an Outward Bound course works, the three programme themes, and the formats they run in.
Course length, group size and content are set with you, and costs are quoted per programme rather than off a price list. Tell us who you are working with, roughly how many of them, and what you want them to walk away with.
We are a registered non-profit with Section 18A status, so corporate and CSI partners receive the documentation their reporting requires. Outward Bound South Africa is part of Outward Bound International, and every leadership course for schools follows its safety and quality standards.
