Map Scales at BSOC

[RJ]

We had this discussion last year after the BSOC. I really thought we had moved on......

Becks wrote:
The white and yellow courses were incredibly tricky to plan on an area with such a complex path network, and I think you may be right, that a larger scale would have made these courses easier to read. My dad certainly agreed when we were having a chat on the day before putting out stakes. Should this be something I should be taking further and saying official things to BSOA about do people think?

RJ wrote:
Thanks Becks. I wrote to Peter Bylett about ten days before the event when I found out the scale was to be 1:10. I think it is being discussed, but I am sure there will be a lot of people to be consulted, so the greater the input the better.

The leap from schools' maps at 1:2000 or 1:1250 up to 1:10 is too much for the Year 5 and 6's, in my opinion. We have small sections of many of our club maps at 1:5000 or 1:2500, which we use for the school/club link events. The larger scale certainly helps to make their (White course competitors) decision making process easier, helps them to read the map quicker, and of course keeps them running.


So..... 2006.... and the White courses for the Year 5s and 6s are using less than 10% of the A4 sheet with their course on. Yes, a nice pretty sheet of paper with colourful logos and titles, and the description list which uses almost 20% of the sheet. Rather like a jar of sauce on a supermarket shelf.... loads of eye-catching logo and colour, and then the list of ingredients on the back which you use a magnifier to read!

It just isn't good enough! What do we have to do to have the subject considered properly?

There is no good reason why the scale used can't be 1:7500 or 1:5000. Give the children a picture they can read easily. The sport isn't just for those with excellent eyesight.... it is for everyone.

[Fratello de Pingu]

It just isn't good enough! What do we have to do to have the subject considered properly?

propably affically suggest to the BSOA committee details of committee at:
http://www.bsoa.org./frame.asp?width=800&height=600&coldepth=32&ref=

click contacting BSOA on the left, then on Committee details

[HOCOLITE]

RJ Perhaps you should have attended the BSOA AGM and joined the committee as you have so much to say on Schools Orienteering. As someone who is not a teacher and not involved with schools O anymore I've been on the Committee since it's inception and the subject of map scales at schools events has not been raised to my knowledge. However I would also like to add that BSOC is not a BSOA event and as you are involved with BO, perhaps you should be taking your crusade up with BO. I also point out that the event is a major event and is probably getting too big for one club and with the pressures of large events, it will end up without clubs volunteering to take it on.

I would also like to point out that no teachers commented on map scale on the day.

I would finally like the teachers to think about the organisers when the children decide to remove the tape to the coach park and throw them in the undergrowth. I had to hunt through undergrowth at twilight last night because this had been done. I also had to hunt for a piece of equipment which had been lent to the event and when lent to a school they lost it and didn't bother to tell us or try to find it.

Rampage over now

[PorkyFatBoy]

We have small sections of many of our club maps at 1:5000 or 1:2500, which we use for the school/club link events.

So why not have these maps at 1:10k for the events prior to BSOC to get them used to it? Barnadiston turn up to the local events every week to run on 1:10k maps and look at the results...

[awk]

So why not have these maps at 1:10k for the events prior to BSOC to get them used to it? Barnadiston turn up to the local events every week to run on 1:10k maps and look at the results...

Most white and yellow courses round here are on 1:5k scales, certainly enlarged from 1:10k. We didn't attend (parents felt it was too far) but none of the events we've done have used 1:10k for this group.

I'd agree though Hocolite, it's probably got beyond one club organising now. It's a big event!

RJ Perhaps you should have attended the BSOA AGM and joined the committee as you have so much to say on Schools Orienteering.

Perhaps he's rather busy doing other things in orienteering. It's a bit like John Morris castigating people for not volunteering - he was talking to those who already do, in abundance!

[ifititches]

RJ, I'm hoping that, if this really is such a strong feeeliing amongst primary teachers it will be raised formally through BOF so they can consider the guidance to organisers well in advance of next year's event.

Whether it would have helped avoid some of the mistakes that youngsters were making yesterday though I doubt. 3 members of my family (including me and one junior) were out in the forest yesterday acting as marshalls/helpers. Before we went out we looked again at the rules to remind ourselves of the level of competence expected, and reminded ouselves that this was an events with "British Championships" in its title,

"All children entered should be able to read an orienteering map competently and be confident in using basic navigational techniques such as map to ground orientation with and without a compass and the use of line features as "handrails". They should have competed in at least three orienteering events at the appropriate standard before the Schools' Championships."

The junior (who's used to working with small children as an athletics coach) was helping patrol the 'white" area and commented that it wasn't the map scale, but more the fact that youngsters were out in a "real" big forest in a large event, and were unsure how to re-orientate a map at a major path junction that caused the most problems on the course she was patrolling. A lot could not relate the tracks on the ground to those on the map. Nevertheless, most of them were having a whale of a time!

No-one who approached us went away without us knowing they were heading the right way.But they had to do the work with us unless they clearly couldn't handle it. Many children did not even have a basic compass with them though.

I was on the more difficult end of the map, and probably did as much coaching in re-location in the course of 4 hours as I normally do over a year's junior coaching. And that was only with the ones who genuinely had "lost it" There was a lot of unfamiliarity with map symbols and control descriptions "what's a re-entrant?" and lots of compasses that were nowhere near maps. But even those who were having a pretty difficult time of it were keen to go on and finish the course. Again, the yelllow courses went through that area, and map scale didn't feature as a problem fo rhtose who were lost .Running faster than you can orienteer certainly was though!


My overall impression (and that of lots of members of the public using the forest) was that it was a great day out in the woods for the vast majority. Very hard work for HOC though!

[RJ]

ifititches.... yes, a lot of valid points there. But, if the children are learning on 1:5000 maps, doing their first three courses, they will learn more quickly. Surely it is intuitively obvious that the children will pick things up more quickly if they have a more readable picture to interpret.

Typically a white course at 1:10000 will fit onto an A7 piece of paper, there will be maybe ten controls, with a control on each of the decision points. Surely it makes sense to make the picture bigger so that the decision points are adequately spaced and the control circles are not overlapping. The map should be 1:5000, but the circles remain 6mm diameter.

The only reason all maps are 1:10000 is that historically they always have been. We have always printed the M/W10 course on the map available for the rest of the competitors. Things have changed.... it is so much easier to print maps at any scale you want, and in any quantity.

If we want to get more children involved in the sport we have to make it easier to get started. I firmly believe a 1:5000 map is one of the steps needed.

Cumbria supplied about 20% of the competitors to the Champs. Perhaps it is not unreasonable to assume there is a link with 1:5000 maps!!

The correct channel for getting things considered is through the Junior Competitions Committee. I have asked them to include the item on their next agenda..... the chair has agreed.

[HOCOLITE]

Having just sorted the left over maps from the weekend. I noted one Year 6 girl had beautifully folded her map and the course fitted into an ideal size for her hands. The circles did not overlap, it looked perfectly managable to me.
Re other points perhaps the rules need to state that the individuals need to have taken part in three colour coded or above events. Maybe kids were coming having run three courses round the school grounds which could have been described as 'white'.

[awk]

I'm sorry that there seems to some reactive digging in of heels here. 1:5000 for younger children makes eminent sense; I've seen the benefits time after time after time, even when the circles don't overlap at 1:10k (that's not the point). Children's eyesight may be good, but their ability to identify and select appropriate information is not, and that process is made much easier by the larger scale (I know, I've tested it several times in the past). OK, the area on Sunday may have managed without it, but that doesn't make the general argument any less valid (and nor do I want to criticise the event or officials: I'm talking about the principle).

I would agree Hocolite that the definition of event may get stretched on occasions. However, I also know that in spite of intense work on setting the map, and going to more than three proper events, I've still got youngsters in Year 6 who struggle to set a map and correctly read features consistently (and no, I wouldn't have entered them). Just because someone has got that experience, it's no guarantee they can do it! So shifting the definition to 3 colour coded events would make no difference - the rule is reasonable enough as it stands. More critical is the judgement of the teacher.

Ifititches: it's quite an eye opener isn't it! It's orienteering, Scottie, but not as we know it!

[Snail]

I can see some merit in using 1:5 maps for younger competitors. But it is not clear to me that the idea has been thought through properly.

It would be daft to adopt 1:5 just for BSOC, as there are lots of children who currently happily only ever run on 1:10 maps and they would be at a disadvantage using 1:5 only at BSOC. (Use of 1:5 seems much rarer in the south at present.)

So the logical conclusion would be for most, possibly all, White/Yellow courses to use 1:5 maps.

But that could be quite a lot of additional work. Regional events might need three maps (1:15, 1:10 and 1:5). Some clubs already have two 1:10 maps to cover a single 1:15 map. Depending on the area, car parks etc, you could easily need up to eight 1:5 maps to cover the same area. So you have to produce a "new" 1:5 map for each event, complete with scales, legends etc.

You are already permitted to use 9mm circles on 1:10 maps if the event uses both 1:15 and 1:10 scales, to ensure control descriptions are consistent. Extending that to 1:5 would logically mean 18mm circles, so that doesn't diminish the "overlap" problem. And I know you can treat them as "separate" events with different OCAD files etc, but do we really want to burden plannners and controllers with effectively organising two or three events simultaneously, and conequently increased risk of error?

[awk]

Having planned several district/regional events that have used 1:5k for White and Yellow standard courses alongside other scales, I can't see where you're coming from at all Snail. The idea has been thought through and used extensively, and is nothing like the convoluted process you describe. For every event we had one map at the original scale on file, and then just took extracts and blew them up for the shorter courses, attaching legends etc. where needed. The last time I did that, it took about 10 minutes work for each of the 2 courses. Easily worth it for the difference it made in readability and positive response from the competitors, both in terms of readability and handleability (if there's such a word!).

You might be right about children from the south being at a "disadvantage" (in fact, my experience is that they find it easier straight away), bu then why should those from the 'north' be disadvantaged by using 1:10k? Cuts both ways, and maybe BSOC should be setting the example?

Actually, I can't see many children whose orienteering is based in schools being disadvantaged by a larger scale: they will all have used them.

[SJC]

As a planner who struggles with technology, one map is easier than two and reduces the chance of making mistakes. I certainly couldn't produce a second map in ten minutes, and wouldn't want to keep two sets of controls, etc.

Insist on making things more complicated and you will lose yet another volunteer.

[HOCOLITE]

From experience my children started O from the ages of 6 and 8 we were 'a new family' never done O before so no help from parents. They never had any trouble with 1:10000 scale and never had 1:5000.I then ran an O club at a primary school for about 6 years we used 1:10000 maps and the children did not struggle, in fact they easily related distance with 1:10000 because 1 cm equates to a football pitch.
I believe that scale of map is not a problem, but I think perhaps scale of event might be and also for some kids being in a forest is daunting.

[Mrs H.]

I think we are rapidly getting to the point where we need to decide exactly what we want this competition to be, Is it an orienteering championship where the best prepared and most talented individuals/teams win - or is it an orienteering festival which celebrates inclusivity and happens to give prizes at the end (and I'm not personally advocating either - just making a point that it can't be both )

If it is the former then perhaps it is time to start thinking about regional qualifying rounds - I'm sure most regions have their own schools championships in some form or other already - we in the West Midlands do.

At the moment the competition itself is certainly turning into a poison challice which makes zero money for the organising club and exhausts all their best and most committed volunteers for months to come partly because of the level of care needed for many of these extremely inexperienced participants - and that is not good for the sport in any sense.