Intent
At Meadowside Primary School we aim to give children high quality outdoor learning opportunities from Nursery to Year 6. Providing children with the ability to explore the world around them and appreciate first hand experiences.
We aim to inspire children through positive outdoor experiences in all areas of the curriculum and give children the opportunity to:
- Plan, build and evaluate
- Find similarities and differences, observe and classify
- Be energetic, adventurous and assess risk
- Plant grow, harvest and cook
- Hide, explore and discover
- Investigate, make predictions and test theories
- Measure, locate, transport and record
- Imagine, pretend and reflect
Implementation
We aim to enrich the curriculum by providing relevant, engaging outdoor experiences carefully planned to fit within our lessons covering all aspects of the curriculum.
Outdoor Learning can be linked to all areas of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage and all subjects in the National Curriculum Core and Foundation. Allowing children to be outside with no walls and no roof, giving children the opportunity to be more spontaneous within their lessons. By providing lessons that are stimulating and engaging in the outdoor environment. This will allow teachers to think outside of the box when planning lessons.
Impact
By the end of KS2 all children will have enjoyed hands on experiences learning outdoors which will add to their understanding and learning of a wide variety of curriculum areas. Pupils at Meadowside will become more well-rounded learners and individuals. They will not only be more confident and resilient learners, through challenging activities and working outdoors in all weathers. They will have developed imagination and creativity through exploration of the outdoors. Pupils will develop their co-operation skills through team work. Pupils will have a good understanding of nature, the world around us, growing plants and vegetables and will have contributed to the development of our school grounds and looking after the world around us.
In 2022 we achieved the Eco Schools Green Flag Award