Nursery World - Enabling Environments: Outdoors

For children to get the most out of their time outdoors, practitioners need to develop the right qualities for leadership, says Annie Davy.

Even if leadership is not part of your job description, the very fact that you are an early years professional makes you a leader of learning. You are a role model, and hopefully, as American president John Quincy Adams said, 'If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader'.

Most settings distribute leadership responsibilities across the team. For example, you may have someone with designated responsibility for communication, language and literacy. Ideally, a setting should also have a designated person for supporting colleagues in developing a high-quality learning environment and to lead best practice outdoors. However, all practitioners should see themselves as having responsibility for all areas of provision, and that includes outdoor learning.

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