Why More Schools Are Teaching Outdoors

Video Transcription

As Wildlife Trust Forest School Ambassador, I’ve been around lots of schools and seen all sorts of activities going on, and they’re all very different, all very diverse, but what you’re seeing here is a classic one. We’re building a bug hotel which is great, it engages sort of physical play, they’re exploring materials, they are looking at what these materials might be to other creatures.

You know a bamboo cane isn’t just a bamboo cane, it’s something that animals will live inside and they’re putting all these thoughts and all their lessons together to create a bug hotel, and there’s all sorts of group interactions with discussions going on, it’s lots of lessons within one, and not a single one of those people is unstimulated by what they’re seeing.

This is the perfect lesson in many ways.

The other advantage of being outside is attention spans generally better, I think 20 minutes extra is what you could get out of an average pupil outside, which is, if you’re a teacher. you know that means an awful lot, that’s basically 20 minutes more learning you can do in a lesson.

And also it’s just good to engage the brain, it’s good to be physical outside and also if you are not an academic pupil, you don’t have to be academic, outside it’s about other, we tend to call them softer subjects but arguably they’re just as important as academic achievement.

And that’s simple things like how to get on with your peers, and how to play nicely together and how to explore the world around you and to value it as well.

So the big takeaway for this for me is that everywhere I go I’m dealing with schools that wouldn’t otherwise have been able to afford this sort of a lesson.

So this is coordinated by the Wildlife Trust, but it’s may financially possible by players of the People’s Postcode Lottery.

So if that’s you, we have just got to say a big thank you.