Nursery World - Learning & Development: Leuven Scales

Practitioners used observation tools developed by academic researchers to assess provision outdoors, as Annie Davy explains.

Today I am visiting Sunnyside Pre-school in Chertsey, Surrey, to practise using the observation tools developed by Professor Ferre Laevers and team from Leuven University. The visit this morning is part of a new practitioner-led action research project exploring how to use these tools to support children's learning and development by making improvements to the outdoor provision. The starting point is observations of the children's experience, their levels of well-being and involvement in the activities and environment on offer.

International research evidence already shows links between access to outdoors (natural environments in particular), mental health and well-being and children's learning. But while the EYFS guidance and other early years documents emphasise the physical benefits of being outdoors and stress children's entitlement to outdoor provision, there is little research that explicitly demonstrates how the quality of the provision outdoors affects outcomes.

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