The challenges of outdoor learning in the ‘average’ school
Defining spaces
A class teachers perspective
I have now been back in class as a supply teacher, for Perth and Kinross, for a term. In this blog I wanted to reflect on the challenges your average teacher faces, on an average day, with an average class, taking them into an outdoor space.
Although having been an education consultant now for over 15 years, it has been many years since I last taught as a primary school teacher, daily, in a school. Since the start of term I have been working with primary 1’s, 2’s, 3’s, 4’s and 7’s. Timetabling has not enabled to branch into the realms of Primary 5 and 6 yet.
I love the outdoors and so have been taking the classes I have taught out when I can. The challenges the average teacher faces in achieving an outdoor learning programme vary in each school. The school I have been teaching in is very large, the outdoor spaces are open and covered in tarmac with very few tufts of grass. I have often been working with up to 29 children alone, or with limited temporary support. Each class has its characters with specific needs and associated behaviours.
So what have I been up to and how have I overcome the challenges.
Firstly, I am new to the school and so didn’t want to push things too far too fast. I want to work collaboratively with other class teachers and not encroach on their space and timetable.
So, My brief top tips from term 1 are:
Discuss with your colleagues who maybe going out and when, where they maybe taking their class (the only timetabled space in this school is the fenced sports pitch), which I don’t enjoy using anyway.
Pick your moment- look at the weather for the day and take the children out when it is not raining (most children do NOT have waterproof clothing, no supplies are available -budgets and COVID restrictions), this also means avoiding the break times, other class sessions.
Define spaces for the children. When there are no walls or fences children find it hard to ground themselves. Their tendency is to run, run, run when the door is opened up. Use existing objects, structures as a gathering or focus points - “run to the bench’, stand against the wall, meet at the tree.
Break up space further or gather children using mats, rope, chalk, flour. You could mark out zones with the children. With younger children I don’t raise up the rope but place it on the ground. circle to gather the group or linear to line up (use as a tight rope on the ground)
With the break from school, children have found it difficult to settle back in and focus. With limited natural resources, I have therefore focused this term on communication skills, collaborative working and problem solving, with a little mathematics/numeracy woven in.
If you go online there are many problem solving activities you can get children involved with. E.g. Robots, opposites, corners, melting pot (email me if you want these explained )…
Break the class up, especially if you are doing a focused activity and on your own. Have half the class marking, spectating, looking for errors while the other half participate.
Allow opting out but only if there is a justifiable reason and they sit in a designated zone and spectate
Mix it up if its not working
Link it with indoor learning when possible (using the outdoor moment as a stimulus or to reflect/put in context something that has occurred inside).
Play the favourite ‘game’ at the end
Do it often, the more children get used to your techniques and the space you use, the more you can achieve. It becomes the norm…