Curious About Outdoor Learning

 Welcome to The Curious About Nature Podcast. This is a podcast for folks who want to connect with nature and re-wild childhood, hosted by Rachel Mills, Buttercup learnings founder, an educator with 20 plus years of experience with a passion for animation, the natural world, and conservation. Rachel focuses on getting digital kids outdoors and having fun in nature, promoting wellbeing and a can-do attitude to local wildlife conservation and sustainable living. Join her and her guests for their stories, experiences and tips to support outdoor learning and nature connection.

Welcome to the Curious About Nature Podcast. This week I'm joined by Joe Clanfield, the founder of Teach Outdoors. Hi there, Jo. Hi. Thank you for having me. It's lovely to have you on. And this is gonna be one of my favourite topics, talking about outdoor learning. Can you tell us a little bit about your background?

Yeah, so I'm a primary school teacher. I've taught from key stage two all the way down to early years, really, so my background is in education and teaching. We're similar in some respects my, my background's education as well and taught across a little bit of primary, a bit of secondary, much more in FE and then higher education.

And then with buttercup coming back to primary roots really. So when did you first start getting interested in the outdoors? So my kind of outdoor learning journey started when I went from teaching year five and six, and I took the plunge to going down into early years, and it was quite scary.

I'm not going to deny it. That change from teaching key stage two to early years was a huge shock, and it was the first time that I thought, Wow, actually, this is how children should learn. That whole child initiated approach and actually if you give them something and they're not interested in it, they will quite bluntly tell you.

But it was a whole outdoor provision as well. It's really practical, hands-on learning and the children are quite in control of this learning. So with that idea in mind, I then went back to the older children and started experimenting. I suppose more with your kind of stereotypical reluctant learners, the ones if you said, today we're going to be writing and using all of the information that we've done from prep we're going to be putting it all together and doing some writing. The ones that we go, oh, I don't wanna be doing this today. So yeah, so I took them outside and it just went from there.

It was that, oh, this works, these children are happy and they're wanting to learn and they're seeing it in a completely different light. So that's how I got into it really.

I'm really passionate about taking kids outdoors to explore things and I've seen the benefits already in my own daughter.

So last year she had a primary school teacher who did a lot of learning outside with her class and with individual children as well. So what are the benefits of taking teaching and learning outdoors? There are so many benefits, and actually there's a really good piece of research.

It's a bit old now, but there's the Nature Connections Demonstration project, and if you are interested in outdoor learning, please google it, go on search for it and have a look. There's a video on YouTube and it tells you all about the benefits from the teacher's perspective and the children's perspective as well.

So the typical sort of things like health, wellbeing but there's also academic benefits. But for me, the biggest one is when you get a child, that stereotypically reluctant learner inside and you take them out and they smile. That for me is it, they're actually relating to real hands-on practical learning.

And it makes sense to them because the resources that you're using are natural resources. They can connect to nature, which is a huge benefit and they're actually enjoying the learning. Learning becomes fun.

And for me actually as a teacher, when you get that buzz, that really good lesson when you think this is the best job in the world, that's what I got more from being outside and teaching those really, like this is an awesome job and actually we're catering for the children's needs, but then using that real buzz to go back into the classroom and using those skills to do all the traditional sort of learning that you would expect to find in a classroom.

So yeah, so there are many, but I think it's breaking down the barriers of a classroom and saying, where is the best place to teach this? So for me it's actually utilising the resources that most schools have and don't use. Yeah, I think we're quite lucky where we're based, we have access to forest school every week and there's an outdoor learning space set up for the teachers and for the children to explore and be involved. And, that has come through one of the teaching assistants and then a range of teachers at my daughter's school who are interested in specifically outdoor learning.

We moved from the city to the country. But I've heard of some really great inner city schools using their playground spaces, it's not all about chickens and green farming and getting your hands dirty, is it? It's just using what you've got, I think.

Exactly, and I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions that's out there is that when I say, oh, outdoor learning, we're actually thinking of like forest school, beach school or something on a farm. And this isn't, I'm focusing on curriculum linked learning that could be done on the playground with a bit of chalk.

Yes. And it's about making it active and interactive for the children. So a lot of the work that I do is actually focusing on involvement and wellbeing with the idea of if there's high levels of involvement, high levels of wellbeing, these children are going to make progress, and an outdoor environment sometimes is the perfect place for them to do that.

Yeah, definitely. So we got a few listeners who are home educators rather than having their children in school. If I'm a home educating parent how could I get started in outdoor learning? Don't overthink it is my biggest thing because I think actually as parents and as teachers, we overthink things a lot.

And my biggest one is to look for natural links. So if, for example, you are teaching about the seasons, go outside and do it over a long period of time. Notice it, record it, talk about it and get children to really observe what is it, what's happening in their environment. because quite often children will see things in a completely different way and interpret things completely differently to us.

And we take it for granted that they have specific knowledge and sometimes they don't. And we try to build on that understanding and actually they don't have it. So actually my biggest one is, Look at the environment. If you are teaching, like I say, seasons, then go out and do it. Make a little nature journal, note down what the temperature is, get them to think about the direction of the wind.

How does that impact us? What's the seasons look like? How do we know when the season changes? All of those different things so that they become the expert in their season, in their environment, sorry. So as the expert in their environment, they will be able to say, oh, this year there's loads of acorns.

Have you seen it? And then that leads on to the next question. Why? And is it normal to have a bumper year of acorns? Why is that? What happens? So I would say don't overthink things and use the outdoor environment to really support what you are doing. The other thing as well is making it really active.

So I know from my own children that actually any chance they get, they will be sitting on a pad or a computer or watching the tele. And an outdoor environment actually switches up off a little bit, which sometimes can be really difficult to get them out. But the more they get used to it, the less kind of imposing it.

So making it fun and making it ,again for example, if you are learning times tables, then actually go outside and start jumping from one number to another number, or thinking of it as repeated editions. So if we're doing our twos, for example, go and find two objects and then what would the next number be?

So actually they can see that link. And using the natural resources quite often, what we see in schools is that we teach them and I'm a big believer in sticks and chalk. Yeah, you can teach a lot with sticks and chalk. And we teach the children during the lesson time and if those resources are left outside, they will continue it at play time.

And often I'll say to a teacher, where else would you find children continuing to learn or to improve their knowledge of fractions? Because you've left sticks and chalk out, and then you've taught them the skills and it's a game and it's fun. Same with times tables. I've seen a lot of children practising times tables and jumping from different numbers because it's just been turned into a game.

So I'd say yes, make your connections, make it active and make it very fun.

No, it sounds like such a simple idea, isn't it? but so effective?

So I'm curious what projects you are currently working on yourself?

Yeah, so at the moment I'm actually really privileged to be working on a pilot study. So we have a small number of schools and we're looking at the impact of a whole school approach to outdoor learning. So this is quite a big one, and I'm working in collaboration with the Changemaker Hub at Northampton University.

And, again, we're looking at the impact of wellbeing and involvement for children, but also the idea that we're going to build a big school community, a whole school approach and see if it's more sustainable. Because historically what happens is one member of staff will go and be trained to be either forest school if that's the route they're going, or an outdoor lead, if they're more curriculum based.

And then once that person leaves the school, the whole provision can go. So it was looking at, and I've worked with lots of schools who have been in that position. So actually developing that whole school approach and that whole schooled ethos is about, you still have your outdoor lead, but actually it's coming from the top down.

So it's in your school development plan, your governors are aware of it, your parents and carers are included in it as well. And we are giving training to everybody. So we have a whole school vision and aim, so we know where we're going. . So that's quite an exciting one at the moment because it's just started.

But we're already seeing some really positive feedback and within the pilot as well, there'll be lots of C P D opportunities. So there's an outdoor lead and they get training so they can get teacher outdoors, teacher status. There's also training for English, maths and science leads, so they can help with the development of outdoor learning in their core subjects.

We have an online curriculum bank so that all teachers can have access to support their planning, to take the learning outside. And also we have a C P D calendar. So there's professionals such as occupational therapists who can look at sensory circuits outside or strategies to support calming kinds of strategies outside.

So all of those things, including speech and language, dyslexia, support, how can you utilise your outdoor space for teaching and learning? So that's a really exciting one for me because it's bringing everything together to make it a really sustainable approach for schools to adopt. It's very low cost in the grand scheme of things.

Yeah. And their outdoor space is there, they just don't use it.

Yeah. It's amazing, isn't it? That we children have like playtime and big spaces or even even if the school is squeezed to space or really simple things that we can do to utilise what they've got available really.

Definitely. And even playtime, and I hold my hands up to this. I'm guilty as a teacher thinking that when I'm on playground duty, it was my time to stand there and have a matter to the TA who might have been on duty with me. And actually as schools, we don't realise the huge potential in providing something really positive.

Experiences for children, and I think we need to take that more seriously. And thinking about that whole picture of how that outdoor space can be used to help them develop. So yeah, I am guilty of that one . If I could change the time back, I would . Yeah. But it's a learning curve, so yeah. So it's a whole picture really.

How do we support them during play times, during learning times? How do we support parents? How do we use the grounds after school? So yeah. And even the wider community. Are there companies within the community, such as farmers? How do they use the land? How is the environment?

And what impact does it have? Yeah. So it's bringing the whole thing together.

So if I'm a school teacher or a school governor and I was interested in finding out more about what support you do offer. Could you tell me a little bit more about what Teach Outdoors offers to schools?

Yes. So we're offering the whole school approach. Just what I've said now, but also I have a lot of schools who come to me and go, we just dunno what to do. So in that case we'll just work independently with that school and look at what their aims are and their strategies are, and work with them to think what is it you're ultimately trying to achieve and how can we utilise your space to achieve it?

So we'll work with them directly to do that. . The other things as well is actually developing resources for early years, such as childminders and supporting child minders. And we're hoping to get a homemed resource bank so that you can actually come along and see what there is to do there.

So we don't overcomplicate it, we just hand you all the different ideas. Yeah. And would those experiences be in person or are you looking to provide other resources online?

So for schools, obviously there's the access to the curriculum resources, the online curriculum resources, and at the moment there's English, maths and science that's available. And we've also developed that so it's in a progression of skills. So if it's a pupil referral unit, for example, and they've got a child who's actually near six, but they're working more at a year, one level, then the skills are for that child rather than in year groups. So it's more transferrable, but it should all be online so it's accessible for more people because it's easier that way. Yeah.

So you already mentioned some ideas around maths outdoors. Have you got any other simple suggestions that parents could do with the child in their own garden?

Yes. My biggest one is a nature journal. I would encourage all parents to do nature journals. There's loads of research on nature connection and the benefits of it and how it's important to all of us, and that inmate need to actually be connected to nature but also different things, just making it really active.

So I've recently done some training to be a specialist dyslexia teacher, and for our dyslexic learners, an outdoor environment could be really beneficial for them because it provides opportunities for lots of multi sensory activities. So anything like that where if there's a really tricky word and they're struggling with the tricky word, then go outside and think of a way to do it.

So it could be that you write all the tricky words on a window and you could get a water gun and squirt them. Or you could hop scotch and jump on the words, say it sounds out each letter, and then put it in a sentence. But even with punctuation you could give a sentence and then they've got to try and slot in the comma or speech marks or whatever it is.

So making it as active as possible.

It is good to get some starting points, I think, for people who've maybe not explored this themselves. Definitely. So we've covered very briefly the difference between forest school and outdoor learning and people have heard of those, terminology around things like outdoor learning forest school practitioners.

Can you explain a little bit more about beach school?

Yes, beach school is very similar to forest school and the same ethos and values and the core is all very much the same, but it's run on a beach. Which is a very different experience.

So I've run beach school during the summer holidays and I've actually done it Where parents and families can come together and experience the beach, and it's really empowering to be there and see family dynamics change. So you could have grandparents who've brought their grandchildren and the children are actually there on their phones or a device and they don't really want to interact at the start, but by the end of it, they're all working together as a team to build a den.

So the beach environment changes very quickly. So obviously in a forest you've got trees and it's fairly stable. And the resources will change depending on the seasons, whereas on the beach you could be in gale force winds. There are no trees to make your shelters. But also similarly, the tides change.

You could have a treasure trove of different resources that just wash up. So the beach school is lovely because it changes whatever you plan for, I guarantee it will change because you never know what's gonna wash up on the beach. And, I don't actually think we have a lot of opportunities unless you live by the sea.

For children who don't, who maybe live in inner city areas when they visit, actually, it's how do, how does that environment work? They're not familiar with it, so it's again, a real privilege to support them with that knowledge. How do the tides work? And even adults supporting adults with that knowledge of how it all works.

And again, it's connecting to nature that perhaps they're not as familiar with.

That's interesting cuz I think I thought I knew quite well, not quite a lot. I thought I knew a fair bit about nature. And then over the last sort of three years as I've developed some ideas around Buttercup and the products we do, I have really discovered that I know very little.

And it's amazing just how much from talking to my daughter about things that we're developing and what we are intending to produce and testing it out on her. It's been really fun to drill down into that and then I've had some lovely podcast guests who've recommended resources and books to read and other podcasts.

And I've got in my bookshelf just above me, in fact, it's full of them, there's about five books up there that have been recommended by different people. Everything from nature journals to diaries, to people's notebooks, to forage calendars, to an amazing book on insects, for instance.

And there is so much that is right underneath our feet that isn't there to just explore whether we're eight years old or 80. There's always something new to learn. And I think that's what I love about being outside is, that ability to discover the new and learn.

definitely. And actually one of my top tips for teachers and parents. Is to have access to the apps where you can scan in a bug or an insect or scan in a leaf and it will ID it for you because the amount of times that I've been like this is a maths lesson, we're going outside to do this. And then a really interesting caterpillar Yeah.

Is just like the whole focus and, actually I can't answer. I don't know them all. I don't know. But actually for the children to have those skills and the strategies to know, can we scan it in and can we find out what it is, then that's really empowering them to own the environment and understand the environment and develop that knowledge.

Do you have any other favourite resources, either your own or others?

So when I first started taking learning outside, this is curriculum link learning, so it's very different to Forest School and Beach School. I would take literally all of my, and I'm one about practical resources, all of my resources from my classroom, cuz it was my comfort blanket because that's what I needed to teach.

And now I would say my number one resource or two resources that are on my top are sticks and a piece of chalk. So I don't have particular books or anything because I think sometimes it overcomplicates things. Yeah. But I would say a stick or a piece of chalk. So chalk can be used for a multitude of things and children quite like it because it's a bit less formal than having to write in a book.

But with a stick you've got a measuring tool with a stick. You can do all sorts of things like fractions with a stick. It could be a writing instrument, it could be something to make a shape with, angles. It can be the hands on a clock. Sticks have so many different ways to be used and again, like I said at the beginning, if you show children how to use sticks in different ways, they then have that understanding to apply that knowledge in a different way. And that's another reason why I love outdoor learning because the dynamics of a classroom can completely change and the children interact really differently.

So those more able, more confident children in a classroom actually might be less confident outside and your less able, less confident child in a classroom all of a sudden changes and becomes more confident because they have the freedom to share that knowledge in a different way. So I would say always having sticks available and demonstrating how to use them. And then they come to you and say, I can show the circulatory system using sticks and chalk and you think that's brilliant and you've really understood it to be able to demonstrate it to me. So it really is giving them an opportunity to think outside the box.

Yeah, absolutely. Brilliant. So what's next for you and teach outdoors? So we've got lots in the pipeline. The biggest one really is thinking about how we can get lots of schools on board and lots of families on board to provide opportunities for children to explore the environment, but also help them to support their teaching and learning really.

So it's about spreading the word for us and we've got an outdoor learning conference on the 13th of June at Northampton University where we've got some fantastic key speakers. from Dr. Tanya Richardson, who looks into how the environment can support speech and language. We've got Brin Lou Ellen, who's very much into active learning and how moving and learning can really help us.

We've got Helen Spring who is coming on behalf of BLEs and how to use your outdoor environment safely and support science outdoors cuz science is one of the easiest subjects to teach outdoors.

It has huge links. We've also got OTs who are going to support it. There's gonna be so much information and support from that. So we are encouraging all schools, teachers, parents, child minders, any kind of educational professional or anybody that's interested in teaching and learning in a different way, really to come along and join us on that day cuz it's going to be jam-packed full of really interesting, fun stuff.

I can't wait for it really. No, it sounds absolutely brilliant. If there are skills that are thinking about doing this or already doing it sounds like the perfect conference.

So where can listeners and viewers find you online or in person? Yes. If you've got any questions about outdoor learning, then please do go to www.teachoutdoors.co.uk or we're on social media, which you can always tag us into anything that you do outdoors.

It is always lovely to see different ideas. And there's lots of different schools that will take us into things. So it's a good idea. If you want ideas for outdoor learning, then follow us and you'll get loads of different things.

Thank you so much, Jo. It's been lovely having you on the podcast and I wish you lots of success with the conference.

Thank you again. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure.

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