The Virtual Nature School (VNS) is a non-profit programme created in response to the needs of children and families during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The programme was set up during the first lockdown in March 2020 to provide home learning support for non-keyworker families, and initially funded by not-for-profit organisation Living Classrooms.
VNS is led by Claire Warden, manager of Auchlone Nursery and the creator of Living Classrooms and Mind Stretchers Academy.
Dr Warden said, ‘Covid hit, and it was really hard, because children were used to being outside, but were trapped inside. We needed a solution.’
Online sessions featured learning provocations presented via video to support and encourage families to carry out outdoor play-based tasks, and then evaluate learning.
The project began with 10 families, largely from Auchlone Nursery.
‘The provocations might be something like asking how can you build a boat of straw today or use sticks, explained Dr Warden. ‘We had a meeting in the morning, then they went away, played outside, came back, had lunch with me virtually, and we sat together and talked about how it went and shared photographs. That’s how it began.
‘Then the Scottish Government got hold of it and decided that it was absolutely the answer to the work they were trying to do with children in isolation. We got a grant from them, and then it really took off.’
In May 2020, the Scottish Government provided Living Classrooms with £159,000 to expand the VNS programme to provide professional training and learning materials to early years practitioners to help them support the delivery of outdoor play sessions for children who usually attended their settings. Further funding was made available to support a second cohort of practitioners in Winter 2020.
Up to 2,000 practitioners received training on the VNS digital platform, reaching more than 40,000 families across Scotland, in every local authority area.
The programme has also reached children across the world via the International Virtual Nature School.
Dr Warden added, ‘There’s some tension between putting the natural world into virtual reality. But the balance of technology is important. Our films are no more than ten minutes long and are meant to be the provocations which take children outside.
‘This has a number of benefits for practitioners. It is inter-professional for people working with children from birth to six, it is open-ended enough to be used in any context, whether an urban or rural environment, and we have developed a community of practice which goes beyond what we do with children and provides a practitioner peer support system. It has become very self-sustaining and has had a really good impact.’
The programme ran until April and while videos remain online and available for free and practitioners involved continue to meet on a weekly basis to share best practice and ideas, the creators of VNS hope to receive further grants from the Scottish Government in order to keep producing content and further resources and material.
Dr Warden said, ‘Hopefully there will be another tender for more funding in the future to ensure it is embedded in practice in Scotland. We are also looking for National Lottery funding to take it across the whole of the UK.’
CASE STUDY
Lathallan Nursery in Angus has worked with VNS since its inception.
Manager of Lathallan Nursery, Deborah Henderson, said, ‘At Lathallan Nursery, we see first-hand that outdoor play provides rich, sensory, first-hand experiences with our natural world that are essential for curious and enquiring minds. By developing a love of nature in the early years, our little learners are building links and a passion to respect the earth we live on and find their place within it. They know to look after the bees, insects and wildlife as they’ve fostered a caring attitude and are already thinking about the impact they have on our environment.
‘The Virtual Nature School and collaboration with Claire Warden has greatly enhanced our staff training and development to reignite their passion for nature and this has had transformative effect on the way we support children and use our unique space here on the east coast of Scotland.
‘The restrictions and lockdown we have experienced over the last two years have heightened our need for nature and time in the fresh air. Regardless of a pupil’s age, we believe that our shared great outdoors provides an unbeatable learning canvas from which to discover and develop as an inquisitive learner in today’s world, and we hope that these videos inspire parents and guardians.’
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