Outdoors: key 3 - Freedom to choose

A number of core organisational issues make all the difference to how well outdoor provision works for everyone, on a daily basis throughout the year. Paying attention to these ‘12 Keys to Unlocking Learning Outdoors’ and working on them as a team over time gradually unlocks the wonderful potential of the outdoors as an enjoyable, effective and empowering environment for learning in the early years. This feature focuses on the importance of children being able to choose when they want to be outside.

KEY 3: TIME SPENT OUTDOORS

• Children know they will be able to go outdoors every day.
• Good use is made of weather effects and seasonal changes.
• Long periods of time outdoors are available.
• Children can choose where to be during the session or day.
  
  

WHY IS THIS ISSUE KEY TO UNLOCKING THE OUTDOORS?

Research and guidelines for such health issues as physical activity and vision development are increasingly insistent that for biological and physiological reasons alone, children should be active and outdoors for several hours every single day. Add to these the emotional and spiritual arguments for nature connection, as well as the very high value of outdoor environments for supporting enquiry, discovery and cognitive growth and being the perfect place for creative and social development, and it actually becomes hard to justify keeping children indoors.

For the full potential of the outdoors to be realised, good use must be made of weather effects and seasonal changes. If much effort has been expended on developing the outdoor environment, it makes sense to make the most of this throughout the year, in all weather.

Importantly, children must come to nursery knowing that they will be able to go outdoors that day and can choose the place that suits them best, at the moment they need it.

Outdoors is where young children are supposed to be, and for some children this can make all the difference to their happiness and success at nursery. Time outdoors should not be rationed. The sense of being in control and able to make decisions about one’s own life, having one’s needs and perspectives valued and respected, is critical for the development of autonomy, belonging and wellbeing.

WHAT DO WE NEED TO BE WORKING ON IN PRACTICE?

‘Time’ has several dimensions when applied to outdoor provision and this Key links into several others. Firstly, children need to know that they will be able to go outside every day throughout the year, even in more extreme conditions (unless dangerous). Adequate shade and shelter providing comfort and protection for all weather conditions is therefore required. Sufficient, appropriate clothing and facilities for managing changing are also important (see Key 4 next month).

Planning will make the most of the dynamic nature of the outdoor world so that good use is made of it right across the year. Rather than limiting time spent outdoors, our ever-changing weather conditions can be harnessed throughout the four seasons by being prepared and ready to take advantage of the wonderful, unexpected and serendipitous opportunities that turn up.

In well-developed practice, the outdoors is fully trusted as a learning environment and timetabling aims to support extended and daily periods outside. The outdoor learning environment is likely to be available at all times – and certainly for long periods of time across the whole day – so that children can choose to be in or out as they experience the need. Parents can start the day with their child outside, and handover to the child’s key person can take place outdoors.

Long periods of uninterrupted time outdoors are necessary for deep involvement and satisfying play to emerge. When they go outside, children need first to be highly active before settling into other kinds of play. In-depth thinking and projects will only emerge when there is a feeling of plenty of time ahead. For example, why go to the trouble of building a den if you know that you will not have time to play in it, especially if it will have to be cleared away! Thus it is critical that routines are planned to be flexible and accommodating so that they do not intrude upon these extended periods of interaction, thinking and learning, and that the environment is managed so as to encourage children to return to engagements that held their interest.

HOW TO MAKE A START AT DEVELOPING PROVISION AND PRACTICE

Things to consider, discuss and evaluate

• Does your team trust the outdoors as a learning environment enough to give children lots of access to it?
• Are children able to be outdoors for long periods of time every day, making the most of the weather and seasonal conditions?
• How much can children choose where to be during the session or day?
• Things to explore and read
• Reasons to be Outside by Jan White and Liz Edwards, available from https://bit.ly/3IGMATw.
• ‘As long as they need: The vital role of time’ by Di Chilvers in Outdoor Provision in the Early Years, edited by Jan White.
• Seasons of Play: Natural environments of wonder by Rusty Keeler.
• A Sense of Place: Mindful practice outdoors by Annie Davy.
  
  

Things to do

• Take a very slow walk with a two-year-old in an ordinary place such as a nearby street. It is important not to have a destination or to be time-limited: go only at their pace and attend to what they notice and are drawn to investigate or do. Notice just how much there is of interest and value for young children, in places that you usually overlook or pass by.
• Audit how the day in your setting is operated and question how things are routinely done. Notice and consider when and why children are interrupted or moved on from where they are engaged outdoors.
• Examine how much time children actually do get to be outside each day, across the week and month, and during each season of the year. Do they really have as much time outdoors as you thought they were having? Does the reality match your intentions? Are some children getting out less than others? What is stopping or reducing the amount of access to the outdoors each of your children actually has, as well as the length of uninterrupted periods they get for play outside?
  
  

Time to 'just be' outside

‘Building relationships takes time; this is as true when it comes to a relationship with our physical world as it is with people in our communities,’ says Menna Godfrey, owner and pedagogical lead at Quackers in York.

‘Children need unhurried time just to “be” outside. In my setting we began our journey to being fully outdoors with an open door to the garden. Later, we encouraged parents to say goodbye to their children while they were playing in the garden, thus saving taking off outdoor clothes only to have to put them back on again! Most children were eager to spend as much of their day as possible in the garden; those who were reluctant were encouraged by their key people to join them in the garden.

‘Children now spend most, if not all, of every day outside. This includes a walk taken at the pace of the children, the same route every day. This daily repetition allows time for the children to notice change and to explore different places along the route. They have developed small rituals in certain spots, like stopping to sell “ice-creams”, and often draw attention to changes, such as the growth of fungi, emergence of bulbs or intriguing footprints.

‘In the garden, we have resisted the temptation to provide “activities” outside, but rather have resources available to supplement what the garden itself offers as play possibilities.’

• Read more about ‘time’ at Quackers at: https://bit.ly/3KK8aYL

Professor Jan White is author of several books on outdoor provision and practice and co-director of the specialist training company Outdoors Thinking