Hollie Hindle and Jenny Wood (Alfresco Learning): Learning outdoors

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 lot of benefits for teachers and education around taking lessons outside.” “[We had children in our classes] who were maybe struggling to engage in the classroom, we went outside and they were suddenly engaged and they were suddenly starting to pick things up.” “Taking my class outside gave me that little bit of relief. It was good for the children as well and all these benefits were happening and all this learning. But, for me, when I had spent an hour outdoors with the class and I came back in, I felt so much better than I would’ve done if I’d have delivered that maths lesson, say, indoors.” “Children that I had in the class, that might have been a little bit shy to come forward and share with the group actually, outside, would share things that they had experienced outdoors, share things that they’d seen during play time, really connecting with the nature. Then, as well, children that were a little bit more of a ‘handful’ inside, outside just connected with other children and engaged with the tasks because it was a different way of learning that just worked.” “My passion for [learning] outdoors really came when my connection to those children changed after taking them outside. My teacher-pupil relationship was greatly improved by taking those children outside because I just saw such a different side to them that I hadn’t seen inside before, and it just worked.” “[Outdoor learning] takes off so much pressure from the children and you, as a teacher. Going outside you’re still covering learning objectives, they’re still learning, you’re still doing what you need to do, but everyone just has such a better time doing it because there’s no pressure of ‘it needs to be in the book exactly like this all the time’ or ‘it needs to be set out in a certain way all the time’. It’s just that freedom that it gives children, and you, to really enjoy learning again.”   VALUABLE RESOURCES Website: https://alfrescolearning.co.uk Alfresco Learning – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alfrescolearning Alfresco Learning – Twitter: https://twitter.com/alfrescolearn Alfresco Learning – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alfresco_learning/ Classroom Secrets Kids: https://kids.classroomsecrets.co.uk The Teachers’ Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheTeachersPodcast/ Classroom Secrets Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClassroomSecretsLimited/ Classroom Secrets website: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/ LIFE/work balance campaign: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/lifeworkbalance-and-wellbeing-in-education-campaign-2019/   ABOUT THE HOST 'My mother is a teacher. I will never be a teacher.' - Claire Riley Claire arrived at the end of her performing arts degree with no firm plans to move into the entertainment industry. A fully funded secondary teaching course seemed like the perfect way to stall for a year on deciding what to do with her life. Turns out, teaching was her thing.  Three years in a challenging secondary school - check. Two years in primary schools with over 90% EAL children - check. Eight years doing day-to-day supply across 4-18 - check. If there's one thing she learnt, it was how to identity the best ideas from every school in terms of resources and use that knowledge to create something that would work for teachers far and wide. In 2013, Classroom Secrets was born. Claire had seen other resource sites and wanted to add something to the market that she felt was missing. More choice + More quality = Balance. Claire is a self-proclaimed personal development junkie and is always looking for ways to learn and improve. It's usually centred around business, her new-found passion. In 2019, Claire launched The Teachers' Podcast that hits the charts on launch and is listed in the top 200 educational podcasts most weeks. The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.