Outdoor Learning

Twineham Outdoor Learning

Intent

Twineham is a village school with nature at it’s heart. In all classes we make the most of our beautiful countryside setting; seeing the outdoors as part of our learning environment and using it throughout the year. As part of this, all year groups take part in a block of ‘Outdoor Learning’. These sessions aim to:

 

Support children’s well-being and togetherness;

Develop outdoor skills and tool use;

Strengthen children’s relationship with their natural environment and celebrate our outside space;

Link to areas of the curriculum, specific to each year group.

 

Wellbeing Aims
  • To recognise the benefits of being outside to our well-being.
  • To have the opportunity to take risks and challenge themselves, developing a growth mindset, self-esteem, independence and resilience.
  • To build teamwork, collaborative skills, communication and trust: developing a sense of togetherness.
  • To give all children time to pursue their own interests outside, being able to plan, do and review their ideas.
  • To have time to reflect and be still.

 

Outdoor skills aims
  • To give all children the opportunity to learn some basic outdoor skills such as den making, gardening and using tools.
  • For children to understand and manage risk safely.
  • To use outdoor skills and adventurous activities to develop children’s physical literacy

 

Environment Aims:

 
  • To give all children ownership to look after our school grounds.
  • For all children to be able to learn about the local flora and fauna.
  • For children to explore and appreciate the local weather and seasonal changes.
  • To gain a wider understanding of threats to our environment and ways to protect it and promote sustainability.

 

Curriculum aims
  • To collaborate with class teachers to ensure that all outdoor sessions support class learning, in a specific subject or across several subjects.
  • To ensure there is a focus on RHE that is linked to specific year group needs.
  • To record curriculum coverage across all year groups and review annually.

 

 

Implementation

Each year group has a block of Outdoor Learning sessions every year. Buttercups have weekly sessions throughout the year. There is an outdoor skills progression to ensure children’s abilities are built on and the curriculum elements tie in to class teacher’s curriculum overviews. The field, our garden and our small wooded area are all used as valuable learning experiences.

In addition to this we celebrate Outdoor Classroom Day every year to highlight all the different ways that we can learn outside. We also hold an annual sponsored ‘Welly Walk’ in collaboration with the Friends of Twineham. Here the whole school walks through the fields together to raise awareness and funds for our Outdoor Learning offer.

 

Impact

Children’s learning is tracked carefully and observations are shared with class teachers to ensure strengths and needs are built on. We have an Outdoor Learning Floor Book which all children contribute to and use to reflect on their prior learning and make plans for future tasks. Children, parents and staff value our outside provision and this is reflected in questionnaires and ongoing feedback.