While hosting a “new to headship” tour at our school recently, there were queries about the excellent behaviour, about what we do to achieve so well academically, about why attendance is so good, and about the children’s good social skills, positive self-esteem and more. The responses to these questions and compliments – from me, the children, and staff – had a common theme: outdoor learning.
No-one needs to tell us how important learning outside the classroom is. We have read about the numerous benefits and know there are countless resources available to support its provision. An online search and you quickly tumble down a rabbit hole of excellent (and often free) resources, activities, and lesson plans.
At our school, Archbishop Cranmer Academy near Nottingham, the approach to outdoor learning has had a significant impact on our students’ achievements, personal development and wellbeing. Why? Because this work has grown from the roots of a well-planned and integrated approach to become something much more – it is an essential part of our school life; literally the spirit of school.
When outdoor learning is excellent in a primary school, it is often picked up on by Ofsted inspectors. The paper Recognition and reporting of outdoor learning in primary schools in England (Prince & Diggory, 2023) states: “Where outdoor learning is good or excellent, it is lauded by school inspectors who recognise the range of outcomes that rich provision provides and its quality and effectiveness in enhancing learning for children. Schools should ensure that they exhibit and evidence good practice to inspectors, focusing on the learning that may derive from ... outdoor learning opportunities.”
However, with the demands of standardised testing, curriculum requirements and the ever-growing pressures on schools and staff, it is not so easy for outdoor learning to be more than a “bolt on”.
Plus staff may worry about what do to in harsher weather, not having the right place to go outside, not having enough help from adults, dealing with behaviour problems, not knowing how to record or keep track of what the students are doing...
But there are solutions to these problems such that outdoor learning can become an intrinsic staple of the whole school curriculum. So, in this article I will tell you more about our school’s approach, including the strategies, skills, and motivations we have used to take the curriculum outside, what has worked well, and any lessons learned along the way.
Headteacher Update Podcast: This recent episode features guests including Alison Marshall – the lead teacher for outdoor learning at Archbishop Cranmer Academy – and is packed full of advice, ideas, and tips for delivering effective and impactful outdoor learning in the primary school. You can listen for free via www.headteacher-update.com/content/podcasts/headteacher-update-podcast-outdoor-learning
An outdoor learning space
At the heart of our outdoor experiences and taking the curriculum outside is having a versatile outdoor learning space. Ours has been some years in the development. We had an eco-club for years before I became headteacher, running at lunchtime for mainly key stage 2 children and attracting around 10 children each week. The children grew things, made bird and animal homes, and initiated reduce/reuse/recycle campaigns. However, this was not reaching enough children and lacked solid links to the curriculum and so we began a six-year evolution.
Year 1: The club leader asked for part of the school field to be “rewilded” – it was fenced off (funded by a local grant) and all the children were engaged in the design of the space through a sustainability themed science week. Habitats were established to encourage wildlife and increase the biodiversity, including log/rock piles, a willow arch, animal homes and feeders, a water station and so on. Everything was donated by businesses, parents and the community. All of this was organised by the children.
Years 2 and 3: The area became increasingly “wild”. Classes were timetabled to use the space each term as part of their normal curriculum time and given a list of suggested and tailored curriculum links.
Years 4 and 5: Eco-club ran after school with around 20 children from years 1 to 6 attending (15% of the school). We applied for Green Flag status, introduced a school-wide potato-growing competition, and bought a garden shed to concentrate all resources for the club. More community links were established by the children, including:
• Adopting the local railway station and planting flowers and herbs.
• Planting commemorative trees for the parish council.
• Taking part in Environmental Days on the last Friday of every term.
• Choosing a charity focus with environmental links for each class.
Year 6: Every class was allocated a raised planting bed to ensure that every year group had the experience of growing something every year. Staff and parents helped to construct the beds. We established half-termly forest school type visits for all year groups with either a clear curriculum focus or activity-based challenges. The environmental club introduced a cookery aspect to its activities in order to use the produce from the planting boxes and became known as Plot to Pot. Membership was up to 40 children (25%) and we built a strong reciprocal relationship with a local eco-farm which gave us further access to forest school facilities.
An interruption: Then, in 2020, Covid struck and during the partial school closures the environmental area became overgrown. We rolled our sleeves up and presented our school families – during lockdown – with a community project to revamp and re-imagine the area. You can see more about this project, including a video, on our website (see further information). It was the perfect catalyst to getting people outside and active during Covid and it was transformational. Our outdoor area had brought new life to school and the children could not wait to get into it.
Planting seeds: The raised beds in the Archbishop Cranmer vegetable garden allow every class the chance to get growing
Key strategies
Variety of experiences: Embrace the diversity of experiences and opportunities available to you among your staff and community. The more varied your encounters with the outdoors, the broader the knowledge and skills you will gain.
Engaging the local community: One of our most important strategies and the simplest. Parents and carers get involved and have ownership of the outdoor area too: we continue to invite them in to help with our work outside.
Potato-growing competition: Don’t limit yourself to just one type of outdoor learning. This competition was a simple but effective way to get every child in school excited about growing produce. No requirement for a dedicated gardener staff member – all that is needed are some prizes.
Events: Using local community village shows as our inspiration, we decided to hold our own horticultural show. This September will be our fourth and it is a new tradition for our school. Our interest in the great outdoors inspired our school families too and our horticultural show is great fun which has an element of competition while bringing the whole community together. This is a team approach – all the staff are involved.
Clubs: A gardening or eco-club does require a dedicated member of staff, but this could be run as a team or on a rotation. We are blessed to have a wonderful staff member who runs garden club over three lunchtimes every week with more than 90 children engaging.
CPD: There is an abundance of free CPD out there to support schools. Our staff team were so motivated by Learning through Landscapes, which delivered free in-house CPD on outdoor learning.
Forest School: A member of staff took on training so that we could become a Forest School, which has led to even more variety in provision.
Young leaders: Let children take on leadership roles: their enthusiasm for ideas and initiatives is contagious and they love organising things. We have eco-ministers, gardening leads and chicken managers.
Awards and organisations: Applying for the Green Flag or Eco School award is easy and generates lots of excellent activities for every class to get involved in. Ditto for the Woodland Trust. There are so many organisations out there. The Royal Horticultural Society is also super.
Timetable: Year 2 grammar work came to life when the children were scribing adjectives in the frost on our benches and tables outside during the winter. We have also worked to incorporate outdoor learning into our regular routines – story-time outside becomes more magical and memorable. We are regularly holding assemblies outside in the playground – weather permitting. A portable mic and speaker are all we need, and all the parents and local community get to hear our singing.
Handling cold or bad weather: There is no such thing as bad weather just the wrong clothes, so ask for donations of wellies and waterproofs and educate your children about sun safety. Buy a shed or ask parents if they have one to donate and hang bags on hooks with all different sizes of wellies and waterproofs. Have a tub with gloves and scarves, too.
Never assume: Sign up to all those outdoor initiatives that land in your inbox. I clicked the link to become a Hedgehog Friendly Campus – and we were accepted! Before I knew it, I found out that we had a staff member who was passionate about hedgehogs and she recruited a team of eager “hoglets” who are so excited about the initiative. We had a few children who had not participated in any extra-curricular activities last year and we were astounded to find that the hedgehog programme has sparked new-found enthusiasm among previously uninvolved children.
And finally: Chickens! Another way to enhance outdoor learning is by incorporating chickens into the school environment. Our experience with a chicken coop has proven incredibly effective in engaging children and encouraging outdoor exploration.
Hedgehogs and chickens: No ideas for outdoor activities are dismissed out of hand at Archbishop Cranmer Academy, including becoming a Hedgehog Friendly Campus (top) and keeping chickens (above)
Supporting teachers
You can encourage teachers to embrace outdoor lessons every day but we found that it was following specific CPD (through our local eco-farm and through Learning through Landscapes) that staff felt really inspired to go outside. It was crucial to provide everyone with the necessary support and resources. These CPD sessions included information on incorporating outdoor activities into existing lesson plans, managing logistics, and addressing potential challenges. This gave teachers more confidence to head outside.
We put some tables in our outdoor learning space which meant children could continue with a regular indoor lesson – but outdoors. We also dipped into the brilliant book Dirty Teaching (2014) by Juliet Robertson which is very motivating.
Sitting together as a staff and dedicating time during staff meetings to plan outdoor learning was essential to integrating it fully and consistently into the curriculum. By collectively discussing and planning how outdoor lessons aligned with our curriculum objectives, we ensured that activities were purposeful and seamlessly integrated into teaching plans.
We created an outdoor learning calendar and then we were able to create a long-term plan. During these meetings, we identified the specific topics or subjects that lend themselves well to outdoor exploration and brainstormed creative ideas for outdoor lessons. We also drew upon each other’s experiences and expertise to enhance our outdoor lesson plans.
A team approach
One person does not have to take responsibility for everything. Talk to all staff and find out what their interests are. Our site-manager helps the children set up and use a wildlife camera – he is also passionate about the planets, so we are hoping to invest in a telescope soon. Our cook and her team love to organise outdoor lunches around a theme. Midday supervisors have enjoyed CPD on making better use of being outdoors during play time. One member of staff took on the train station project. Our art lead shared ways to take our art curriculum outside, providing plans and resources. Working as a team, we created a progressive skills and learning document so everyone knows what they are doing, what they can do, who can help them, and guidance about when to do it.
Melanie Stevens is the headteacher at Archbishop Cranmer CE Academy in Aslockton, Nottingham. For more details on their outdoor education work, visit www.archbishopcranmer.co.uk/outdoor-learning or find them on X (Twitter) @AslocktonSchool
Headteacher Update Autumn Term Edition 2023
- This article first appeared in Headteacher Update's Autumn Term Edition 2023. This edition was sent free of charge to every primary school in the country in September. A digital edition is also available via www.headteacher-update.com/content/downloads
Further information & resources
- Archbishop Cranmer CE Academy: Outdoor learning area project: http://tinyurl.com/4rytbwfn
- Hedgehog Friendly Campus: www.hedgehogfriendlycampus.co.uk
- Prince & Diggory: Recognition and reporting of outdoor learning in primary schools in England, Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 2023: http://tinyurl.com/h8s4cu4d