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Our study visit to explore risk-taking and resilience outdoors in Japanese kindergartens and daycare centres was inspirational in many ways. We saw exciting practice, demanding landscapes, huge vistas and engaged, committed adults. We saw children interacting with nature, with loose parts, with adults and with one another. However, with more than 90 per cent of the population of Japan living in densely packed cities, not every early years setting has the space for outdoor play.
Childcare is in huge demand – statistics suggest that almost 50,000 children are on childcare waiting lists, and a complicated system of ‘points’ makes accessing state-run Hoikujo wraparound daycare difficult for families that can’t demonstrate two full-time working parents. Yochien – private kindergartens which are typically sessional – are very expensive. Childminders are virtually unheard of – they are known as babysitters or daycare mamas and are mainly for babies, before they start pre-school or kindergarten.
One of the outcomes of this is that adult:child ratios are high in early years, with groups of up to 30. Ratios are mandated by government, and the lead teacher in each pre-school or kindergarten class is very likely to have a junior college diploma and will have the title ‘pre-school teacher’.
The settings we visited had ratios of around 1:15, although I should note that baby ratios are 1:3, and up to three years old it is 1:6.
In Yokohama city where our study took place, several kindergartens have no outside space at all, yet staff know that being outside and having regular contact with nature is essential for the physical and mental health of their children. For settings with little or no outdoor space, venturing beyond the setting is essential in order to meet the cultural demand for outdoor play and connection with nature. Several of our study settings practice machi-hoiku – roughly translated as the ‘town as school grounds’.
They leave their base for long lengths of time, walking through the neighbourhood to local parks, open spaces or elementary schools, where children are free to play outdoors.
Practitioners develop an understanding of their neighbourhood, exploring patterns of movement and mapping spaces and places that will allow children to form relationships with neighbours, local businesses and other children. One setting we visited walked past one of the children’s grandparents’ house each day, admiring their lushly tended garden and water features. After several conversations about a statue the children had taken a particular interest in, Granddad turned it around so that it no longer faced his own house, but instead faced the pavement so that passers-by could admire it too.
In the UK we are beginning to understand the importance of allowing children to be visible on the streets and neighbourhood public spaces – or perhaps ‘remembering it’ might be a more accurate description. Tim Gill has written and spoken extensively about this in his blog Rethinking Childhood – and in the USA, Lenore Skenazy’s Let Grow movement is fighting against a culture where safeguarding fears have been allowed to stifle children’s freedoms.
Japanese educators recognise the tide of overprotection too and their concerns are reflected in the physical freedoms and adventures we saw them encouraging children to engage in. Even the Japanese royal family agrees – Prince Hisahito attended Ochanomizu Kindergarten, which is Japan’s oldest surviving early childhood setting, in Japan’s first-ever women’s university. It opened in 1876 and has always used the entire campus as its machi-hoiku environment.
On our visit to Ochanomizu University, we walked through the mature landscaped campus to the kindergarten’s base, a large brick building. The setting does have its own outdoor space, but explores the wider campus every day, and has identified ‘micro bases’ around it, including one which they have developed with new planting, earth mounds, and long grass to play in – none of which is possible in the outdoor space they have immediate access to. There are also opportunities for building and cooking on fires, and the nature of these micro-bases means that children are very likely to encounter university students on their way to or from lectures. Indeed, at our visit, several came over to find out what the children were doing, and to chat to them.
Children at Ochanomizu wear coloured caps, and go out and about as a whole setting – this was also the case with other settings that used their locality as their outdoor play space. Children carry their own lunchboxes and drinks, and equipment and resources (which are minimal) are carried in trolleys or adult backpacks.
TRANSITIONS
Our study tour didn’t plan to look at transitions as part of building resilience, but nevertheless we noted that the Japanese approach to ‘school readiness’ differs in a number of ways from that we are familiar with in the UK. Towards the end of pre-school, settings implement an ‘approach curriculum’, working alongside local elementary schools to share plans and activities and to play together. Large groups of children playing and walking together is a deliberate strategy, which educators believe helps children transition to school, where classes are larger.
The ‘approach curriculum’ involves socialising in large groups, and with multiple age groups, and often venturing beyond the setting as a whole group. Elementary school children might join in machi-hoiku, offering older children opportunities to play and be role models. Once at elementary school, children begin with a ‘start curriculum’, which is tailored to their needs and might include learning outdoors, working in large groups and using the floor as a workspace, rather than tables and chairs.
What next?
Visiting so many settings in Japan was truly a privilege and we are hugely grateful for the individuals, settings and organisations that made it possible. There is still so much to share, so please do visit the Learning through Landscapes and Play Learning Life websites, where the case study collection is growing (see More information). If you have been inspired to step up the outdoor play challenge at your setting, please do get in touch as we would love the opportunity to share more about these incredible settings.
MACHI-HOIKU: MAKING IT WORK IN YOUR SETTING
The key lesson from the machi-hoiku approach is to embrace the neighbourhood beyond your setting as ‘your’ place. Having little or no outdoor space is no barrier to daily outdoor adventures. Children can, and should, access and engage with nature every day. UK childminders will be very familiar with this approach, and indeed plenty of settings do explore their neighbourhood.
To get out and about – to occupy and ‘own’ your neighbourhood – you will need to know the local area very well. Before taking children off-site, explore the locality at all times of the day, so that you get to know its routines and the ebb and flow of activity; then you can engage with it, or avoid it, as appropriate. Robust benefit-risk assessments will be crucial, but so will a healthy dose of common sense to enable you to adapt to unexpected events, changes in the weather or any of the other inevitable changes that happen in ‘the real world’.
Much can be learned from the nature kindergarten or Forest School movements in the UK: their flexibility, the richness to be enjoyed in minimal resources, the joy of being immersed in nature. In addition to this, we noted that in our study settings, practitioners are led by the children’s interests, particularly when off-site. Routes and routines are flexible enough to allow the whole cohort to stop when they see something interesting, and adults build on children’s delight ‘in the moment’ and back in the setting.
CASE STUDY: Moana Kids Day Nursery
Mary Jackson visited Moana Kids Nature Day Nursery, Yokohama, which has a beautifully designed Reggio-style indoor space with tables, chairs and storage built from natural materials. What it doesn’t have is any outdoor space of its own. The setting began life as an after-school offering, expanding to provide full daycare for pre-schoolers as demand for their environmentally sustainable approach increased. The setting’s philosophy emphasises the value of nurturing children who will ‘create the future’ and do so as independent, creative citizens.
In common with other early childhood settings in Japan, Moana Kids’ practitioners understand the importance of children connecting with and celebrating nature, and they value nature themselves; therefore what makes Moana special, although not unique, is that children are outside for long periods of time every day despite being in the middle of a large city.
Yokohama is a city with a ‘green matrix system’ designed into its infrastructure – this means it has a ring of green spaces, including public parks, which help to make it a livable city. It also means that many schools and early years settings are within easy walking distance of a public green space. Moana is one of those that makes the most of being just five minutes’ walk away from its local public park.
Every day, the whole setting walks to the park, crossing roads along the way and walking down a steep set of steps to the park, which has wooded slopes and a river running through it as well as level and grassy spaces. Led by their practitioners, this journey is treated by the setting as a way of making children visible within the city; they feel it is vital that children are seen as valuable, visible and important members of society, and being out and about every day reminds the wider community of this.
The full range of spaces in the park is used by Moana, with children occupying them for various lengths of time depending not only on their age, but also on what else the children want to do that day. This flexibility can and does impact on the time it takes to walk to and from the park; if there is something of interest to children along the way – for example, a place, an object, a person – then the group might stop for a while to investigate this, or they might detour to watch a local event. The journey to and from the park is as much part of the experience for the children as their time in the park is.
Once settled in the park, children and adults move to their chosen spaces and places, and skilled practitioners support children in their explorations. Children climb wooded hills and clamber through tree roots and dirt embankments; they hunt for edible seeds on the ground, peeling and tasting them with the encouragement of knowledgeable practitioners who ensure they are safe. Children are able to move short distances away from the adults; by working together, one practitioner can focus on leading an activity while another can make sure no child wanders too far away. This gives children the freedom to explore on their own, playing with the wealth of natural materials around them and having the opportunity to try, possibly fail, then try again and finally succeed in a range of situations.
Children show real resolve in climbing up the park’s many hills, occasionally slipping down again but then, without requesting (or needing) additional help, demonstrating emotional and physical resilience in their determination to keep trying until they have mastered the challenge.
A river runs through the park; a higher ratio of adults present means children can safely explore the water’s edge, reaching out with long sticks across the water while the adults watch or, if necessary, gently hold onto a shirt or hand to make sure children don’t fall in accidentally.
Practicalities
Moana is not the only nursery to use this park, so it is essential that staff can quickly identify ‘their’ children. Every child wears a coloured sun hat. This system – which was in use at all of the settings we visited, regardless of whether they go off site or not – allows staff, and also members of the public, to identify which children come from which setting. On the day of my visit, several different groups of children were using the park, each with different coloured sun hats.
Three-year-olds carry their own mini-backpacks, containing water bottles; the whole setting collects in an area with public toilets and the backpacks are stacked together before each cohort heads off in different directions. Moana uses the same spot throughout the year so that children become familiar with the space and the routines associated with it, and feel confident and comfortable using it. They also see how the space changes over the four seasons, and therefore learn how to manage their own well-being in all weather and in all seasonal climates.
Daily outdoor sessions are planned for a couple of hours but can be longer, with older cohorts in particular taking their lunches with them (in backpacks) a couple of days a week in order to facilitate longer, more immersive sessions.
Children walk around 2km to get to and from the park, but these journeys can become considerably longer if detours are taken to explore something of interest off the usual route. The nursery also takes children on expeditions beyond the park, using Yokohama’s excellent bus, train and underground public transport systems to make visits further away, such as to historic sites, the beach or places of interest.
Why we were in Japan
After a whistle-stop tour of kindergartens in Yokohama in 2017, I was determined to return to delve deeper into the exhilarating outdoor play programmes I’d seen. As a member of the International School Grounds Alliance, I was able to use its 2018 conference as the opportunity to plan a detailed research and visit programme.
Supported by a generous grant from the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, my colleague Mary Jackson (pictured right)and I spent two weeks visiting schools and settings, talking to head teachers, parents, children, practitioners and designers, and observed hours of rich, challenging, physical outdoor play and learning.
Our visits were curated by landscape architect Dr Ko Senda, of Tsurumi Junior College. The professional backgrounds of Ko and his colleague Ryutu Otsubo (of Japan’s Playground Safety Network) helped us to investigate the theory and practicalities that enable such high-quality, risk-taking play to take place. In particular, we focused on how risk-taking outdoors can foster resilience in young children.
This series aims to share our findings with a view to helping UK settings plan new approaches to risk-taking outdoors.
MORE INFORMATION
www.plloutdoors.org.uk/casestudies
www.internationalschoolgrounds.org
