As teachers, we need to deliver the content of the National Curriculum. We may not always agree with what is in that curriculum, but that is a much longer conversation! What is not set out in the National Curriculum, however, is how we deliver the prescribed content. Which teaching approaches and resources do we use to ensure that children have made progress and met the relevant learning objectives?
The school grounds can be an amazing resource and there are opportunities to teach many different objectives outdoors. Even with school grounds that lack green space, there are opportunities to chalk the playground or simply to take story books outside.
Teaching outdoors can also be regarded as a teaching approach, a strategy, just like teaching through role play, through paired work or through problem solving.
No single teaching resource or approach will best meet every lesson objective. As teachers, we need access to a range of different approaches and resources which we can select from in order to best ensure that children meet those objectives set out in the National Curriculum.
Planning to take learning outdoors
Start with the learning objective and consider how we are going to assess whether or not children have achieved that objective. Remember that assessment is not the same as writing things down. The best assessment is often the conversations that we have with children.
Think about where the lesson could be taught, and where would be the best place to teach the lesson. Consider which strategies will ensure that children will make the most progress or achieve the objective.
Taking your objectives for a forthcoming topic and highlighting which should be taught outdoors and which could be taught outdoors can be a good starting point.
Take the example below. These are the English National Curriculum objectives for Y3 Science Plants.
In my opinion, identifying the parts of flowering plants should be done outdoors – it could be done indoors as well, but at least once I think that children should go outside, dig up a flowering plant and look at the roots, the stem, the leaves and the flowers. I think that you could teach children about the function of those different plants outdoors, and personally I would prefer to, but I don’t think that it is essential that this learning takes place outdoors.
I think that the second two bullet points, the one about the requirements of plants for life and growth, and the one about water being transported in plants, could be taught outdoors. Personally, I’d do the one about the requirements of plants for life and growth outdoors, getting children to grow different plants and learn about what the needs of those different plants were as they grew them. Then, I’d do the classic investigation with plants in coloured water for transportation of water – I’d do that one indoors.
For the final objective, I think it’s really important that children go outdoors at different points in the school year to see pollination, seed formation and seed dispersal in action. There’s also a lot about the life cycle of flowering plants that I’d teach in the classroom as well as teaching outdoors.
Am I right?
It doesn’t really matter whether you agree with the objectives that I think should be taught outdoors, and the ones that I think could be taught outdoors. That’s just my opinion. Some people may think that more of the objectives above should be taught outdoors in order for the children to learn them effectively; some may think that none absolutely must be taught outdoors.
What’s important is this personalised approach. Consider your topic in advance and highlight the objectives that you think absolutely must be taught outdoors in order for the children to learn the thing that we are trying to teach them.
Beyond the school grounds
When looking at going on school visits, consider what the learning objectives are, or could be. Not every school trip is about meeting curriculum objectives, but for many teachers, the only way that a school visit is going to be approved is if lesson objectives are covered as part of the trip.
Liaise with the visit provider – what objectives will be covered on the trip, and what has already been covered at school? How will you assess whether children have made progress?
Consider whether asking children to write about their learning is the best way to assess progress when they are on a trip – or even afterwards!
As part of our LOtC Quality Badge journey at Howsham Mill, we improved and continue to improve, our booking processes, so that schools not only know what our intended learning objectives are, but also have the opportunity to tell us about relevant prior learning or planned learning following the visit.
This is really helpful. If we know that this is the first lesson in a new topic on rocks and soils, our initial questioning will be different to the school that arrives having completed a full unit on the subject.
The activities might be the same, but as teachers ourselves, we can better anticipate the misconceptions and questions that children might arrive with if we are prepared.
This blog post was written by:
Helen Spring – Primary Science and Outdoor Learning Consultant, Howsham Mill and Spring Learning
Helen Spring is a Primary Science and Outdoor Learning Consultant, running her own business, Spring Learning, as well as working through and for many other organisations. Helen is the author of ‘Teaching Primary Science Outdoors’, and leads training about teaching primary science outdoors. She is also the Education Lead at Howsham Mill, a fabulous LOtC Quality Badge holder in North Yorkshire offering free curriculum-linked school visits. In addition to this,
Helen works as a Primary Consultant for CLEAPSS, supporting schools with safe practical work, both indoors and out.
View and buy Helen’s book: ‘Teaching Primary Science Outdoors’ on World of Books
