EPISODE NOTES
In this episode, following their hugely popular season 1 podcast episode, Claire talks again with Hollie Hindle and Jenny Wood from Alfresco Learning.
Hollie and Jenny, both from teaching backgrounds, share a passion for learning outdoors. In this episode they discuss the challenges and benefits associated with providing activities in outdoor environments.
As a result of the coronavirus restrictions currently preventing school visits, Alfresco Learning now provide training videos, online CPD and have developed their Key Stage 1 planning hub to maximise their impact on even more teachers and practitioners.
 
KEY TAKEAWAYS

Look at the bigger picture for outdoor spaces.As we do with indoor environments, consider every ‘single nook and cranny’ for learning opportunities in the outdoor space. A woodland area is not essential for outdoor learning. A playground and a strip of grass can provide great opportunities for learning.Alfresco Learning are huge advocates for using ‘natural loose parts’. Resources such as sticks, leaves, and seasonal items like conkers, pine cones and acorns are readily available, free, and are a great way to bring as much nature as possible into spaces that might be considered to be somewhat lacking in that.
Appropriate clothing and the importance of effective communication with parents.Children, and adults, need suitable clothing in order to utilise the outdoors to its greatest potential. Those who are reluctant to undertake outdoor learning can frequently reference inappropriate clothing, so practitioners must be comfortable outdoors in a range of weathers.Parents need to be informed about the sorts of activities which will be taking place outdoors and what clothing is required for the children. Communication is key to ensure parents are aware of the requirements, and children are well prepared, for outdoor learning.Similarly, in our settings, we should promote a culture it being fine if children’s coats get a bit muddy. It’s part of outdoor learning and parents should not feel pressured, or obliged, to wash them every single night!
Outdoor learning is very beneficial for children and adults.As children are more active outside, they are more involved in their learning. The activities and experiences are more hands-on so they pick up key learning more easily. Sometimes, if a concept is proving rather challenging and children aren’t quite understanding it, by taking them outside and doing an activity on a much bigger scale, and more practically, it can help children understand better.

 
BEST MOMENTS
“[The challenge of time is] the one we’ve heard the most… purely down to people’s understanding of what outdoor learning is. Outdoor learning, really, should be taking your everyday indoor lessons outside. So taking your phonics outside, your maths, your English, your topic, science experiments, and people think it’s going to be an addition on their workload but, actually, what you find is, it reduces workload.”
“[Some settings have timetables, allocated time slots, for taking children outside but] outdoor learning doesn’t work like that and actually, especially with the British weather, it’s not always going to fit into your slot. It might be that it just doesn’t quite fit in with what they’re learning that week. It might be that it doesn’t fit in with what the weather’s doing that week. So giving teachers a bit more freedom with when they can take their class outside really opens it up for teachers that maybe aren’t as confident in doing so because they can then choose which lesson it is that they take out…”
“The outdoors demands that the activities are practical and hands-on, otherwise there’s no point… the children won’t reap the same benefits.”
“[Studies] show that children develop more strongly, cognitively, when they’re outside and surrounded by nature. It has all these wonderful effects on the brain with concentration and attentiveness which obviously then increases learning… there [are] a