Every child deserves outdoor learning
Joy Blizzard, Policy and Communications Officer
| Field Studies Council
Guarantee high-quality outdoor learning and fieldwork for all and reap the many rewards
Ensuring that every child can experience outdoor learning and fieldwork residentials as part of their education can address many of the urgent issues piling in the government in-tray.
Few disagree that good-quality outdoor learning is a vital part of education. It has many benefits, including boosting health and wellbeing, attainment and skills development. All of these benefits are enhanced when experienced as a residential.
Sadly, this once-common part of school life is rapidly becoming the preserve of only the better off. It will come as no surprise that schools and parents are struggling to fund field trips and outdoor learning. Many children are now completely missing out, and they are often the ones who would benefit the most.
Opportunities are now under threat as never before. A school outdoor learning residential may be the only chance for disadvantaged learners to travel away from home and explore national landscapes and natural environments. Many come to this charity having never been in the countryside or on a beach before.
There’s no substitute for hands-on learning in the real world
Learning in the outdoors and connecting to nature bring learning to life and can enhance any subject on the curriculum. Those who struggle in a classroom environment engage or re-engage with education. Particularly in a residential setting, away from the usual classroom hierarchies, pupils can connect to their peers and teachers in a new and positive way as they learn, explore, socialise and eat together.
The boost in health and wellbeing cannot be underestimated, either. As one visiting teacher said of her urban class, “it allows their brains to breathe".
Fieldwork is a vital part of key curriculum subjects such as biology, geography, and geology. As well as developing knowledge and skills, field trips create memories that can be recalled during exams. They are the experiences that can ignite an interest in the green skills for nature needed to meet the UK’s environmental obligations. So many young people are keen to play a role in combatting climate change and biodiversity loss and need opportunities to develop practical ecology, conservation and habitat management skills in order to pursue a green career path.
Practicals really engage learners with the subject, often because they’re fun and learning in the outdoors has an added element of unpredictability not found in laboratory conditions. The weather and tides change and the wildlife doesn’t always cooperate. But with field trips away from home at risk, opportunities to explore contrasting landscapes or experience the wow factor of wildlife watching are reduced. Ecological fieldwork can be so much more exciting than analysing plantains on a school playing field.
Pulling the threads together
Recent government funding for projects to target this issue has been very welcome, but funding remains piecemeal while the need continues to grow. Across government, these issues are being flagged up but are not being pulled into a coherent whole.
For example, the current Curriculum Review has a welcome focus on inclusion, and we would like to see high-quality outdoor residentials for all as a result. We still hope that Tim Farron’s amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to conduct a review on the benefits of outdoor learning to children’s wellbeing can be reconsidered. The Science and Technology Committee back in 2022 drew attention to gaps in the UK’s skills and knowledge needed to carry out nature restoration.1 Ofsted’s recent report into science2 recommended that all pupils have enough opportunities to take part in high-quality practical work, including fieldwork. One of the main findings of their report into geography3 was that fieldwork was underdeveloped in almost all schools.
If you are still not convinced of all the benefits, the comments below are from an academy chain and recount the difference that a Generation Green 2 DEFRA-funded fieldwork residential made to students who would otherwise have been unable to attend:
"For many of our students it will have been the first time they have … stayed away from home prepared their own lunches; been to the British countryside; seen a sheep; stood outside in the wind and rain and actually enjoyed it; had games, stories and songs around a campfire; felt safe to walk in the dark and explore the great outdoors. And for many, certainly the first time in a long time they were able to reconnect with their inner child".
"On our return … we have seen improvements in students accessing exam questions, resilience and confidence to apply knowledge to unfamiliar situations. In some more extreme examples, there has been a complete turn around in attitude towards learning – for the better".
High-quality outdoor learning and fieldwork residentials can indeed improve equality of opportunity, health and wellbeing, and learning outcomes, and deliver the skills the UK needs. If you would like to find out more or help us work towards ensuring that all children benefit, please get in touch at policy@field-studies-council.org or visit www.field-studies-council.org to find out more about the charity.
References
- Nature-based solutions: rhetoric or reality? - The potential contribution of nature-based solutions to net zero in the UK January 2022
- Ofsted Finding the optimum: the science subject report February 2023
- Getting our bearings: geography subject report September 2023
