STEP OUTSIDE
Embracing the great outdoors
Leaving the classroom behind and immersing in the natural world is key to a child’s development. But could we do it more – and sooner?
e hear it all the time: with every new generation of children, the consensus is that they need to be spending more time outside, running around and getting acquainted with nature. But how close to nature can they get when they’re spending the majority of their school day indoors? Outdoor learning isn’t brand new – forest schools are thought to have been introduced in the UK around the 1990s, with the Forest School Association created in 2012 and going on to provide formal qualifications. As of today, many schools in our area incorporate outdoor learning into the scheduled timetable, while forest schools capitalise on their natural settings as the basis for their curriculum. Research has shown that outdoor lessons have a positive impact on physical and mental health and overall wellbeing. As it stands, the national curriculum refers to outdoor learning just ten times within the science syllabuses for key stages 1 and 2, with plants, changing seasons and living things and their habitats all taught outside. Merging outdoor and conventional learning can improve the development of children’s cognitive, emotional and physical skills. Students being taught in outdoor settings are encouraged to approach their learning
hands-on, with many outdoor lessons taking a student-led and collaborative format compared with conventional lessons held in indoor classrooms. Now more than ever, we see schools in our area treating education and nature as complementary forces. For some classes, the playground and school field are no longer reserved for break time, lunch and the odd PE lesson – green spaces are now places where breakthroughs in maths, literacy and science happen, too, with some schools even introducing eco-classrooms and nature reserves. After all, Cambridgeshire is one of the greenest places in the UK, and it’s about time we take advantage of the natural learning tools our area has to offer. Outdoor and indoor lessons have similar targets but take different routes to meet them – whiteboards are substituted for “For some classes, the playground and school field are no longer just reserved for break time, lunch and PE lessons”
30 SPRING/SUMMER 2024
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