Developing the Wellbeing of Children Through Outdoor Learning

In today’s blog post, I’ll discuss the importance of children getting the opportunity to be in outdoor environments and how this helps with mental well-being and soothes those with neurological challenges, including ADHD.   Nature Deficit Disorder Louv (2008) highlights that children spend less unstructured time in nature. The paper concludes that this impacts children’s […]

The Importance of Outdoor Play

Throughout my career as a teacher, I’ve mainly worked with KS2 children, but in my new role, I’ve been enjoying my KS1 and early years classes. They’ve given me the chance to observe many fantastic examples of play in the early years and KS1 departments, which has inspired me to introduce more free play opportunities […]

Making Sustainability Connections Through Outdoor Learning

“Sustainable development is about developing an understanding of the global implications of our daily actions (e.g., energy and resource use) and taking responsibility for these” (Beames et al., 2012, p. 8).   There’s plenty of research that supports the view that the world is living unsustainably and that tackling this problem should be a priority […]

Overcoming Challenges and Teaching Outdoors

Overcoming Challenges  Teachers often face seeming obstacles when planning and facilitating outdoor learning. These include weather, adult-to-child ratios, and timetabling (Salmi et al., 2016). The aforementioned are all challenges I have encountered as a teacher, and through experience, I have come up with solutions to most logistical problems. As a class teacher, I planned one […]

Using Local Environments For Outdoor Learning

Local Environments  There can be a perception that outdoor learning needs to take place far away from school (Beames et al., 2009). In Scotland, where I grew up and have previously taught, it’s common for primary-age children to go on a yearly residential trip to engage in various outdoor activities. Although residential experiences are positive […]

What Is Outdoor Learning?

Introducing Outdoor Learning Welcome, and thanks for reading my first blog post. I want to start with an introduction to outdoor learning within primary education. It can be a little tricky to find an all-encompassing definition of outdoor learning. The Institute of Outdoor Learning (2020) defines outdoor learning as a broad term that includes discovery, […]