In the UK we’re still not sure what to do with our brightest pupils. Some get set extra work; the lucky ones go to summer school. Thirty girls from a high-achieving inner-city girls’ school were recently sent on a trip to Eurodisney as part of the Government’s gifted and talented initiative - and were sent to Coventry by their schoolmates on their return. “Boffin bullying” is now reportedly a fact of life at the school.

In Vancouver, on the west coast of Canada, they do things differently. Instead of spoiling the gifted or pushing their brightest further down the corridors of academia, they throw away the textbooks, send them up mountains and encourage them to dig out their own snow caves. Over here, that’s the sort of activity we might consider for disaffected youths. Over there, it’s a privilege, reserved for the brains of British Columbia’s biggest city.

Each year, Vancouver’s high-achieving 14-year-olds are invited to apply for the Trek enrichment programme, based at the Prince of Wales secondary school in one of the city’s suburbs. The initiative has been running in its current form for about 15 years.

At the start of term in September, the 108 chosen students are split into two streams. One half spends five months on intensive Grade 10 study, the other half gets to go all rugged and put the demands of the Vancouver curriculum on the backburner. Their classroom is now British Columbia’s coastal mountains, the Rockies, the temperate rainforests of Pacific Rim national park, four other national parks and 36 provincial parks. It’s no surprise that Trek is over-subscribed.

Positive word of mouth persuaded 16-year-old Megan Hamilton that the programme was for her. “I heard that it was so much fun and everyone who had come out of it had the best year ever. It is a completely different environment from regular school - it’s much better,” she says.

Andrew Weatherill, 15, was drawn to the physical challenge. “I thought it would be a great opportunity because it’s really physically demanding,” he says. “So far, we’ve built quinzies (snow caves) and slept in them for two nights. We’ve climbed a mountain on skis, we’ve hiked a 40km trail, and we’re about to go on a seven-day kayaking trip on Vancouver Island. It’s been even better than I thought.”

Before they were let loose in the wilderness, the students had to learn the basics. Lynn Dawson, who leads the course, describes the busy induction period. “In September, they’ll get skill rotation, an introduction to camping and cooking, tents and tarps, canoeing and kayaking, rock climbing, some navigation and first aid - all compressed into about four weeks.”

Once they’ve learned the ropes, they take off on a seven-day trip before the weather turns. That initial trip is followed by further visits to the Gulf Islands, hiking, kayaking, canoeing or mountain biking. During the year they’ll also be introduced to rock climbing, backpacking, cross-country skiing, telemark skiing and winter camping.

There are no full-time professional guides to take the students through all this. As well as having the required teaching qualifications, all the teachers involved in Trek have a complementary range of outdoor skills. Ms Dawson has experience of ski instruction, rock climbing and kayaking. Her colleague Andrew Humphries specialises in water sports. Another teacher on the course, Jamie Mani, runs his own kayaking business during the summer.

Despite all this physical slog, the academic side isn’t completely forgotten. During the outdoor phase of Trek, the students do English, although they may be studying the mountaineering classic Into Thin Air rather than Alias Grace or The Handmaid’s Tale. And in their social studies lessons, there’s more of a focus on the natural resources of British Columbia and environmental and global issues. There are also PE sessions to work on strength and flexibility.

So, after a year on mountain, river and sea, how do the students cope with the four walls of a classroom and the regimented routine of a normal secondary school? “I think it’s going to be pretty hard to get back to work because we haven’t really done math or anything for six months,” says 16-year-old Brad Barbeau. “It’s going to be hard, but we all have the grades to do it so we should be able to pull it together.”

Although the programme is intensive, Trek is not intended to turn the participants into junior outdoor guides or create super guides for the future, says Ms Dawson. “The courses are all at introductory levels and we don’t want the children to think that they can go out and do all this stuff on their own. For about three-quarters of the students, it encourages them to go on and do more in the outdoors. Only a small percentage really gets involved in becoming instructors, leaders or researchers.”

It is an outdoor learning experience that has little to do with credits and testing and everything to do with character and teamwork, says Mr Humphries. “For most of them the skills acquisition is easy. What they find hard is the behind-the-scenes stuff - the group dynamics. Working together as teams and working on their own personal growth and changing who they are - they find some of that tough.”

TRACKING DOWN THE CASH

Although the Trek programme is supported by the Vancouver School Board, which pays for staff salaries and classroom space, each student pays a $500 (pound;216) tuition fee and they have to undertake a gargantuan fund-raising effort to keep the scheme going. Each year they raise close to $60,000 (pound;26,000), most of which comes from a surprising source.

“Our biggest fundraiser is the Christmas tree lot,” reveals Lynn Dawson. “In December, we turn it into a business, and students and parents sell Christmas trees. It’s been in the works for about 20 years so we have loyal customers and families of previous students that come back year after year. We raise a big chunk - around $45,000 (pound;19,500) - through that.” The rest comes from sponsored bike rides, fundraising by parents, and even selling garden manure.