Nursery World - Learning & Development: National Strategies series - part 10

In our National Strategies series Dr Andrew Lockett, Early Years Regional Adviser (NE), Anne Lamb, Early Years Senior Regional Adviser (EE M) and Jan Lepley, Senior Adviser, reflect on the importance of being outside.

When you look back on when you were young, do you remember the outside spaces, whether it was the woodlands, beach, wasteland or the local maze of streets? Do you recall the timelessness of playing outside, and the physicality of it - the running, the jumping, the climbing? Have you memories of playing with natural materials, whether the forest litter, the finds from beach combing or perhaps even recycled materials made into a go-kart? Do you remember your imagination running wild - creating dens, camps, castles, rose petal perfume? And the friendship groups enjoyed outdoors - falling out, making up, and with no adult intervention?

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