Learning outdoors reports

From muddy hands and dirty faces… to higher grades and happy places

Outdoor learning & play at schools around the world. ‘… looking at how much time children around the world spend playing & learning outside as part of the school day … includes a review of the wide-ranging literature about why outdoor learning & play are important & an overview of the impact of the Outdoor Classroom Day movement.’ With key statistics & findings.
Prisk & Cusworth, Outdoor Classroom Day, November 2018

Student Outcomes & Natural Schooling: Pathways from evidence to impact report

Executive summary: ‘Children are becoming disconnected from the natural environment. They are spending less and less time outdoors. In fact, the likelihood of children visiting any green space at all has halved in a generation.’ Natural Environment White Paper (HMG 2011:12) ‘Experience and a variety of evidence suggest that learning in natural environments (LINE) can be effective in delivering transformational change in outcomes for students and hence by inference to school performance.’ (eftec 2011:1). With recommendations to help improve the impact of policy & research underpinning the implementation of the Framework for 21st Century Student Outcomes from outdoor learning.’
Plymouth University, 2016

Natural Connections Demonstration Project

Natural Connections was a four year project (2012 to 2016) funded by Defra, Natural England & Historic England, delivered by Plymouth University, developing & testing effective ways to provide local support to schools & teachers to enable outdoor learning.
Natural England, July 2016

Natural Connections Demonstration Project

Teachers resource: ‘This booklet aims to provide school staff with a compelling introduction to the value and impact of well-planned regular outdoor learning for pupils, teachers and schools as a whole.’

The Impact of Children’s Connection to Nature

“This report presents findings on the impact of connection to nature from a survey of 775 children, using the child as the unit of analysis, rather than aggregated data. The results demonstrated that children who were more connected to nature had significantly higher English attainment, although this wasn’t repeated for Mathematics.”
Report by the University of Derby for the RSPB, 2015

Back to School: Back Outside! Create High Performing Students

'Outdoor education and play time help students become high-performance learners with skill sets that will be with them throughout their lives, and help students perform measurably better on standardized tests.'
National Wildlife Foundation: Connecting Kids & Nature - special report (US), 2010

Time Out: Using the Outdoors to Enhance Classroom Performance

'School administrations and educators have a critical role to play in reversing the negative impacts of the increasingly indoor childhood and helping children to experience, understand, and appreciate nature and the outdoors.'
National Wildlife Foundation: Connecting Kids & Nature - special report (US), 2009

Do school grounds have a value as an educational resource in the secondary sector?

‘This review will assess the evidence currently available about how school grounds can be valuable to learning in secondary schools, and consider whether deficiencies in the quantity or quality of the research might be responsible for these benefits being underexploited or undervalued.’ Fully referenced and evidence reviewed.
Barbara Chillman, Sussex University / Learning through Landscapes, on Green Schoolyard Network. c2004