Bindaree Outdoor Education Services commenced taking students out into the outdoors in 1990. Its founder, Brendan Layh, initially trained as a teacher and worked in a variety of country, metropolitan, state and independent schools for over two decades. 

As a teacher, he quickly realised that he could expand the normal subject based classroom learning by offering his students a series of carefully crafted practical experiences in an outdoor setting. By taking students out of their comfort zone, away from their normal school and family routine, he found that students could be both challenged and encouraged to develop important personal life skills - leadership, team work, initiative, responsibility etc - so necessary on their journey to adulthood. 

Combining his knowledge and love of the outdoors with his attention to safety, Brendan collaborated with faculty heads and parent bodies within schools to create a series of unique outdoor programs across a variety of natural environments - marine, forest, mountain, aquatic, alpine - that enabled students to engage in challenging and potentially life changing program experiences outside of the classroom. 

Observing the immediate effects this method of learning had on his student's health, personal growth and sense of worth, Brendan used his twenty years of teaching to hone a series of outdoor programs, activities and experiences built around safety, risk management and student welfare. 

In 1990, rather than providing these opportunities within an individual school, Brendan left teaching and created Bindaree Outdoors to enable any school across Victoria to access these programs and adapt them to meet their own particular school and age group focus.