Outdoor Learning

Gone are the days when outdoor learning simply involved children with a clipboard counting passing cars, or when it was something only accessed by pupils in Early Years. The wealth of ideas and support available means that all areas of curriculum learning can now benefit from the advantages of outdoor exploration. Before you begin to think about what activities you want your children to take part in, you need to consider what you want the children to gain from the experience. The key is that outdoor opportunities shouldn’t be a bolt-on to the curriculum but should instead be enriching learning.

Benefits of Outdoor Learning

There is a mountain of evidence to support young people learning in the outdoors, and the benefits are well understood now. Probably the most important of these are for the mental health and wellbeing of pupils. In a world dominated by technology, any opportunities to reduce screen time are seen as a huge plus for all children. Learning outdoors also supports the development of problem solving and reasoning in a wide variety of subject areas by encouraging hands-on exploration, teamwork and collaboration. And, of course, the fresh air and vitamin D the children get are extremely important (providing there’s some sunshine!).

Before Heading Outdoors

Planning is vital to ensure that all outdoor learning activities will enhance curriculum learning. Planning starts with an idea and is quickly followed by risk assessments. While a lot of the activities you will undertake will likely already be covered by general risk assessments already in place for your school, it is worth checking that this is the case for what you have planned. You’ll need to think about pupil allergies, existing medical conditions and anything else which might pose a risk to the children, such as the equipment you plan to use, nearby bodies of water and quality of the grounds. Consider how the weather could change and remember there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. Make sure you, the children and any other helpers are well prepared!

Next, you need to make sure that you have contingencies in place. Think carefully about how you may need to support children struggling with the task, or how you will extend it for those who seem to fly like lightning through it! It may be that you provide time for group feedback or have a problem-solving activity afterwards.

Think also about how other adults will be deployed. Would it be useful to invite some parents in to help? Perhaps you can enlist some of the older children within school to be group leaders. Whatever you decide is right for the activity, ensure that those helping know exactly what you want to achieve and how much help you do or don’t want the children to have. A great idea would be prompt question cards, to help other adults to lead discussion openly and to support wider discussion rather than looking for a definite answer.

Curriculum Opportunities: English, Maths and Science

Some subjects lend themselves well to outdoor activities. By exploring through hands-on experiences, children learn both to appreciate the natural world, and this enables you to reinforce key messages around sustainability. Taking the learning outdoors also reinforces prior classroom learning while providing tangible experiences upon which to build back in the classroom. Gathering materials from the outdoors and bringing them in supports wider understanding about habitats, seasonal growth and change and even how to respect nature and not to take advantage of the resources it provides. To get you started, you might want to check out this resource on minibeast hunts, or this one on examining parts of plants.

Encouraging the children to create poems or detailed narrative descriptions based on their exploration of the natural world is a simple way to take writing outdoors, and there are plenty of things to count outside as well. Keeping things mathematical — exploring fractions and percentages of amounts can be done with types of leaves, stones or other natural materials. So many activities can become nature activities. You could swap out your maths cubes or number shapes for stones, leaves or twigs.
 

Being Creative

Other subjects like art can be very well-suited to outdoor exploration. Art is a sensory experience and a great opportunity to develop a tactile appreciation for the wider world, while gaining an understanding of how nature has influenced artists throughout history. From simple activities such as bark or leaf rubbing, to complex mixed-media collage, there are plenty of opportunities to enrich skills. Children can produce art in the style of other artists, for example by using this resource on Impressionism. They could also explore natural sculptures and use natural materials to make their own. Why not take some of that screen time outdoors, and develop photograph portfolios of your environment? You could take this a step further and use the photos to create digital nature trails for other groups either within your class or across the school.

Design and Technology can also lend itself well to outdoor learning. Imagine taking this task on bridge building outside! What can we use in the natural world to build a bridge? This activity provides a wealth of opportunities to use technical vocabulary, share ideas collaboratively and problem solve practically.

Collaboration and Teamwork Through Physical Education

Much of the PE curriculum lends itself to outdoor delivery. This resource introduces children to orienteering, which is huge fun and develops teamwork skills, communication and, hopefully, patience! There is huge scope for development over time – once children are more confident with their orienteering skills, they can try using this resource to develop their own course. While some aspects of PE may appear easier to address indoors, taking them outdoors can create a multi-sensory approach which can be more inclusive and enriching for all. Dancing outside in a wooded area in autumn, listening to the crackle of leaves underfoot while moving to a beat could be an amazing way to develop listening and attention skills, focus, coordination and mindfulness early in the term.
 

The Wider Curriculum

Other subjects can be trickier! History, for example, can feel very book or video based. However, using role play to explore the lived experiences of peoples and cultures from history would support the development of empathy in your pupils. You could modify resources that ask children to build a model, like this one about Iron Age hillforts, by suggesting that pupils use what they can find outside to create their designs. While the class is outside, they could warm up with a traditional Maya hot chocolate – bitter with a twist of chilli! Or they could use this resource to create Roman shields and form a battalion which has to communicate together to move as one tortoiseshell formation. Taking source-based understanding and applying a real-world example is easier than you might think!

Outdoor learning for all

Outdoor learning is also outdoor play: free from the confines of a table, children are able to explore in an environment with reduced stress in an inclusive environment. Encourage the use of appropriate vocabulary by chalking the words you want to use on to a wall or floor, scaffold learners who might struggle with a to-go basket of support materials, and encourage moments of stillness and reflection at the end of outdoor activities through a guided meditation, using resources like this one. The possibilities really are endless!