The argument for outdoor learning has never been stronger. After the UK Government announced the first Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020, by May, outdoor learning experts were calling for the education sector to take up the opportunities it offers.
Helen Bilton from the University of Reading’s Institute of Education called for educationalists to recognise the example set by early education. ‘Schools have an opportunity in uncertain circumstances to learn from the early years sector, where the outdoors has always been considered a teaching and learning environment alongside inside,’ she said.
Education experts recognise the benefits of outdoor learning for children, and these are well-documented. However, research into the benefits of outdoor learning on practitioners themselves is less abundant, and Ofsted has never published any material on the subject.
Throughout 2021, Nursery Worldwill explore the world of outdoor continuing professional development (CPD) for early years practitioners.
While the lower risk of viral infection offered by being outside has provided a context for increased interest in outdoor teaching, we will look beyond this and hear from practitioners who believe learning outdoors is as beneficial for adults as it is for children, and should be happening anyway.
UNDERSTANDING THE OUTDOORS
Delivering effective outdoor learning is not as simple as stepping outside. Preliminary results from a project by the Lawson Foundation in Canada, published in December 2020, found that children’s access to quality outdoor play is ‘facilitated by – or limited by – the attitudes and capacity of parents, caretakers, educators and decision makers’. Training practitioners and changing attitudes are imperative.
Professor Jan White, a consultant of outdoor provision in the early years, says practitioners need to understand the distinction between Forest School pedagogy, which has gained much attention in recent years, and ‘the daily experience adults and children can have in their daily on-site provision’. Outdoor learning, she argues, is about ‘understanding how the curriculum is operating outdoors. That’s what training should be doing – helping people see the learning happening through children in self-directed play’.
Before adults take part in outdoor CPD, they often have to overcome several barriers. ‘I’ve come across people who look scared to be outside,’ says Ms White. ‘A lot of people don’t live a lot of their lives outdoors. People turn up inadequately dressed. If your body is used to being indoors the whole time, it’s not going to find the outdoors as easy to be in.’
Four years ago, Hull University began embedding outdoor learning into its early years and primary teaching degrees. Head of subject for education, childhood and youth studies Jo Traunter says students are often hesitant at the beginning, but afterwards overwhelmingly report they enjoyed the work outdoors the most.
Ms Traunter introduced the method because she realised the university was teaching students by telling them, rather than letting them experience learning. ‘If you’re sitting in a classroom, you’re listening to someone talk and you can get quite drowsy,’ she says. ‘After a while you lose concentration. When you’re outside, you use all your senses. It’s an environment that’s always changing – not static like a classroom. Outside it’s cold, it’s hot, the sky is changing, the colours of the trees change. It’s constantly stimulating.’
Play Learning Life delivers outdoor CPD to early years professionals. Director Julie Mountain says adults can learn more effectively outside because it is more physical. ‘There’s a very strong connection between movement and cognition,’ she says. ‘Physical activity fires neurones and helps us learn. That’s particularly true of young children and it continues into adulthood.’
Ms Mountain says the most common CPD courses requested by practitioners cover PD and maths. She helps practitioners make best use of resources they already have outdoors, and understand how to adapt their knowledge to the outdoors. ‘If they feel unconfident outdoors, the barrier is you’re not focused on what you can do outside,’ she says. ‘If you are focused, it’s much more enjoyable.’
The necessity of delivering education in a Covid-safe environment, which might be outside, has happened quickly. Ms Mountain says practitioners need to cut themselves some slack about how good they will be at providing outdoor learning. ‘The first step is the trickiest,’ she says. ‘It might not work the first time, but you just have to persevere.’
The science behind outdoor CPD
Exposure to sunlight is thought to increase the brain’s release of a hormone called serotonin, which affects feelings of well-being and happiness.
- The body converts serotonin into melatonin in the evening, which helps you sleep.
- Indoors we breathe people’s exhaled breath, which contains carbon dioxide and makes us feel sleepy. Outside, the higher oxygen level helps us to stay alert.
- Physical activity stimulates the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter, which helps us feel energetic and engaged.