The Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (DfES/QCA 2000, p23) states that effective teaching depends on 'planning the indoor and outdoor environment carefully to provide a positive context for learning and teaching'. Despite this clear guidance, some practitioners still see outdoor activities simply as promoting physical development. They provide for climbing, riding tricycles and using small apparatus, such as balls and beanbags, but little else. However, by considering our own experiences as young children we see that although outdoor play did promote physical development, it also did a great deal more.
Outdoor learning
Adults report that their freedom to play outside for long periods with older and younger children supported their development in the following areas:
* Social skills Learning to take turns; sharing ideas; taking responsibility for others (including younger siblings); negotiating with others; and taking specific roles in play.
* Personal and emotional development Learning their own limitations; gaining self-esteem from personal achievements and from being trusted by parents to be sensible; learning to make judgements about risk and about resisting peer pressure.
* Communication and language skills Learning a new vocabulary and new ways of using language, including written language, to communicate ideas and feelings.
* Knowledge of and respect for the environment and natural world Learning about features of the natural world and their local community; gaining awareness of seasonal changes; learning to show respect for plant and animal life, and for the property of others.
* Creativity, imagination and resourcefulness Inventing games and role-play scenarios; and using as play props materials found or borrowed from home, such as sticks, leaves, old sheets and a clotheshorse.
* Problem-solving and calculating skills Learning from working together to make play props or scenarios and solving problems that arose.
Without realising it, most adults developed a broad outdoor curriculum for themselves as children and many still feel a strong connection with the outdoor spaces in which they grew up. An adult on a course once commented: 'I feel grounded when I return to where I lived as a child.' Such adults are convinced that the outdoor play they enjoyed as a child had a positive impact on their development as people and as learners, and they still enjoy outdoor activities.
Loss of freedom
Unlike previous generations, children growing up today rarely have a chance to play freely outside. For various reasons (see Lindon, 1999 and Edgington, 2002), they are most likely to spend time away from early years settings indoors or in organised activities. Many of them spend a lot of time watching television or videos, or playing computer games. Their toys are often inspired by television and film characters, and sometimes offer little potential for creativity. It is, therefore, vital that early years settings and primary schools offer children rich outdoor experiences - otherwise much of the learning outlined previously may be lost.
Full potential
While all areas of learning can and should be offered outside as well as indoors, it is not simply a case of taking the indoor provision outside.
Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (p15) states that practitioners should 'make good use of outdoor space so that children are enabled to learn on a larger, more active scale than is possible indoors'.
In the outdoor area children have the chance to socialise and learn in larger groups. Practitioners often find that children play more harmoniously outside and that behaviour improves. Outside there is scope to make more mess and to work with a wide range of natural and recycled open-ended materials, such as shells, twigs, large pebbles, logs, cardboard boxes, milk crates, tyres, guttering and long carpet-roll tubes.
These materials encourage children to use their imaginations and be creative as they work together to build role-play scenarios such as a bus, den or shop. The more they work with open-ended materials, the more resourceful and imaginative they become and the more they communicate with others. If children are to be able to write creatively, they must have many opportunities to develop their ideas and language through imaginative play of this kind. Practitioners who simply take the indoor sand tray or drawing table outside are not exploiting the potential of the outdoor world.
If outdoor space is limited, it is best to offer one or two types of provision on a large scale and to rotate that provision over time. If practitioners see the indoor and outdoor areas as one environment that offers complementary but different opportunities for learning, they will be able to ensure that, within the whole environment, all provision is made every day - sometimes indoors, sometimes outside. Settings with larger outdoor spaces could offer the full range of provision indoors and outside in complementary ways.
Boys and girls
Some children will learn more effectively if they can access the Foundation Stage curriculum outside and certain groups who have already spent a great deal of time outside, such as refugee and traveller children, may feel more comfortable outside. 'For them they need to be outside as this is where they feel empowered' (Bilton, 2004, p5). Children who are living in cramped accommodation may also benefit from being outside in a larger, freer space.
The Campaign for Learning found that boys tend to prefer a kinaesthetic or active learning style. If boys are asked to sit at a table with a pencil and paper they often say things like 'Can I go now?' or 'Have I finished yet?' However, if offered clipboards, paper and pens outside they will often use these enthusiastically. One of the most important goals in the Foundation Stage is that children should 'continue to be interested, excited and motivated to learn' (Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage, p32).
Advances in brain scanning techniques have shown that boys' brains tend to develop more slowly in the first five years than girls' do. Boys find it more difficult to achieve precise tasks in which both sides of the brain are used, such as writing, reading and cutting accurately with scissors.
They need to work on a large scale so they can gain a sense of achievement and retain their motivation. A good quality outdoor curriculum is, therefore, a key way of giving boys an equal chance to achieve.
Practitioners will only see some boys' true capabilities if they observe and assess their learning out of doors.
Outdoor experiences can also enable girls to develop holistically. Many girls prefer activities that involve being near an adult. Some of these girls may be timid about taking part in more physical activity. Adults need to model a healthy, active lifestyle so that girls are drawn towards physical challenges. All children will concentrate better if they are involved in regular bursts of physical activity.
Health aspects
All children need to be encouraged to take part in vigorous exercise.
Growing numbers of young children are overweight or obese, which is linked to sedentary lifestyles and diets that include too much fat and sugar. The outdoor curriculum, because it encourages more activity than is possible indoors, has a role to play in the early patterning of a healthy lifestyle.
Lifting and manoeuvring heavy crates or tyres, riding or pushing wheeled toys, climbing ladders to paint a wall with water or gardening with child-sized spades and hoes all have the potential to increase the child's heart rate and promote healthy development. Hannaford (1995) stresses that movement is critical to learning. It activates the mind, helps the learner to process new information, and facilitates the expression of what is learnt and experienced.
Real experiences
Many aspects of the Foundation Stage curriculum (and indeed the National Curriculum for primary pupils) can only be taught effectively outside. Much of 'Knowledge and Understanding of the World' demands it.
It is not possible to learn about weather conditions and seasonal changes indoors - you must see, feel, hear and smell them. Similarly, positional language in maths is better learnt through children moving their bodies on climbing apparatus, along obstacle courses and when manoeuvring wheeled toys.
Since the publication of Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage, Ofsted inspectors have been more aware of the importance of outdoor provision and are more likely to comment on limited outdoor learning opportunities. Ofsted has also helped many reception class practitioners to persuade their senior management teams to include outdoor provision in their school development plans.
Further reading
* Bilton, H (2002) Outdoor Play in the Early Years, David Fulton
* Bilton, H (2004) Playing Outside: Activities, Ideas and Inspiration for the Early Years, David Fulton
* Edgington, M (2002) The Great Outdoors, Early Education
* Featherstone, S (2001) The Little Book of Outdoor Play, Featherstone Education
* Featherstone, S (2003) The Little Book of Outside in All Weathers, Featherstone Education
* Hannaford, C (1995) Smart Moves: Why Learning is not all in Your Head, Great Ocean Publishers
* Lindon, J (1999) Too safe for their own good, National Children's Bureau
* Ouvry, M (2000) Exercising Muscles and Minds, National Children's Bureau Websites
* Campaign for Learning www.campaign-for-learning.org.uk
* Learning through Landscapes www.ltl.org.uk
