Creative Outdoor Learning - How? Why? and What Next?

22/10/2010 by James.

Yesterday was my last day working on the College Lake inspired outdoor learning project with Ashmead Combined School in Aylesbury.

I’ve spent 3 days introducing 6 different groups to College Lake, exploring the site and supporting individual children to find and share their own discoveries, and then 3 days at school, each split into two half days with a group of nine children in each (so that’s two groups running in parallel over those last three days.)

The original project was set up by Alistair from Outdoor Culture, and the key aim was to support the children to experience a wildlife rich site like College Lake, an experience which a lot of them wouldn’t have had before, and for them to work with an artist (me) again, an experience which most of them won’t have had before.

“At the very moment that the bond is breaking between the young and the natural world, a growing body of research links our mental, physical and spiritual health directly to our own association with nature - in positive ways. Several of these studies suggest that thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can even be a powerful form of therapy for attention deficit disorder…As one scientist puts i, we can now assume that just as children need good nutrition and adequate sleep, they may very well need contact with nature.”

R Louv - Last Child in the Woods

The reception team at Ashmead are interested in Reggio inspired ways of working and so wanted to pick up on my experience in working in a child initiated way, so the 3 days at school focused on supporting the two groups of children to develop in confidence in following their own interests within the context of the schools own outdoor space.

So, how did that go, and what next? Hopefully you’ll have read through the previous posts and so I’ll sum up in a minute, and start thinking about where we can take things next, but first here’s a brief summary of what happened in yesterdays session.

One of the key parts of my work in such projects is supporting the children to reflect on what we/they have done previously, and to explore possibilities of what we/they could do next. So at the start of yesterdays’ sessions we talked with each group about what they could remember from the week before, what they had most enjoyed and what they would like to do this time (similarly at the end we looked at photographs of the session, gave the children a chance to share anything they wanted to tell us about them, and then wrote down any ideas they had for the future).

After I had read from my notebook some of their ideas and comments that I had noted down last week, we went outside to collect materials.We wanted the children to see that there is a wealth of materials that we can find and collect outside, so that they could draw from those as well as from those that I had brought along.

Its hard to capture everything that happened, but again there were children who were less confident in such an open brief and needed time to explore and to ‘find their feet’ before they focused on a particular way of making or investigating, or who needed a greater level of support in developing skills in sawing, tying, pushing stakes into the ground etc, and there were children who knew exactly what they wanted to do and what they needed.

The thing with a project such as this is that I’m not aiming to produce magical outcomes, or effect huge changes, more that I am looking to support the teaching staff in providing opportunities for the children to pursue their interests in ways which can help them to become more confident learners.

For me the beauty of creative, child initiated learning is that it can use for example, ‘intelligent’ materials (open-ended ones that encourage a variety of responses and interpretations) such as recycled or natural objects, to encourage children to take their existing ways of exploring the world to a new level, learning in ways that are relevant and enjoyable to them, and which can be ’scaffolded’ and supported by the adults working alongside them.

As the teachers pointed out, the children weren’t necessarily doing anything new as such, in that their behavious were recognisably ‘them’, but they were being given a chance to follow those interests across a series of sessions, within the context of the ‘real’ world of the outdoors, and on a larger scale that might normally be possible. The outdoor environment also tends to provide those children with a more active, full-bodied way of interacting with and learning about the world with a more positive outlet/role.

As another teacher pointed out, what this kind of project can also do is provide the children with opportunities to do all the learning that they need to in terms of literacy, numeracy etc, but through ways that are relevant and enjoyable to them. So, ideally, the adult is there to document, talk to and advise the children in ways that support the child to learn, rather than planning and leading a session in the more traditional sense.

So for instance, one girl yesterday created a measuring stick and invited every other child and adult to be measured and then recorded their various heights in different colours, whilst another explored weight, balance, tying etc through creating a see-saw and a swing out of sticks, string and rope.

As well as enabling us to track this learning, the continuing cycle of documentation, reflection and dialogue with the children and adults supports the children to gain an awareness of where they have come from and where they are going, as well as encouraging language development as they share and explain their ideas.

“Our role in this context is to draw out the thoughts and ideas of children and to support their learning once we have first established what matters to them. Similarly, we can see just how much children seek out teachers themselves to support and lead them in their learning,”

A Sully - Researching Children Researching the World

So what next? One of the challenges identified by staff has been how they can keep abreast of what is going on in this focus group whilst it is happening in a separate space from the rest of the group, and how the benefits can be shared with other staff and children.

So far we have had regular reflection meetings, members of staff have taken turns to work with me and document the children, and suggestions have been made as to how all the documentation could be used within the setting to make the learning more visible and ’share-able’.

Its a really interesting set-up at Ashmead, in that the three reception classes work in interconnecting spaces and a large amount of the time is spent in free-flow between these interconnected indoor spaces, and an outdoor play area.

At the moment we are looking at me paying a return visit to the school in the Spring Term, and working within this space as one of the ‘activities’ or resourced areas on offer, to help integrate the project into the setting. I think this could offer both benefits and challenges, so it will be interesting to see if we can offer continuity and depth of learning to those children who need it, whilst being visible and accessible to the less confident children who would be able to dip in and out.

All in all its been a really rich experience with a great group of children and adults, and has given me lots to think about.

If you’ve any thoughts or comments to add please do so here, as we are keen to be able to share ideas across projects and settings, and to explore different approaches to creative/child-initiated learning within this age group.

‘We have discovered a cycle of enquiry that constantly re-emerges: an encounter between children and materials coincides with their imagination or interest, is recorded by the teacher or saved as an artefact, and is retold by children and teachers, which becomes a provocation to pursue the encounter into the future. It is a continuous cycle of perching and flying. Like birds landing and taking off, children and teachers survey the terrain and ascend in order to gain a new perspective.”        

Barbara Burrington, USA

Posted in College Lake Residency, Learning/Teaching, environmental issues, projects | Print | 4 Comments »