Birth to three: outdoor provision - Action points

Early years settings are expected to provide children under the age of three with regular, high-quality outdoor experiences. The current framework, Birth to Three Matters, promotes that expectation and the Early Years Foundation Stage, which will be statutory from September 2008, shares that expectation (see box).

The Government is also encouraging local authorities to review how settings ensure that children can access outdoor provision and to check that providers are aware of their responsibilities. Yet outdoor provision for babies and toddlers is an area of the curriculum that concerns many practitioners.

What does the outdoor environment offer babies and toddlers? What can they do outdoors? How can we keep babies and toddlers safe and healthy outdoors without restricting their natural impulse for exploration and investigation (see box)? These are just some of the issues raised by practitioners around the country when they turn to Learning through Landscapes for advice and information.

Why is the outdoor environment an important place for very young children?

Being outdoors has a positive impact on children's well-being and development. It offers them unique experiences and play opportunities that are different to those they have indoors.

When babies and toddlers are outdoors they can enjoy:

- fresh air and direct contact with the natural world, the weather and seasons

- whole-body multi-sensory experiences that offer them a new and exciting perspective on their world as they crawl, roll ,slide, smell and feel

- more space, a sense of freedom and a variety of spontaneous opportunities for investigation or exploration

- real activities, such as sweeping leaves, and new experiences, such as smelling flowers

- play opportunities with open-ended resources and play materials

- new challenges and 'adventures' with other children and with attentive key workers.

What can babies and toddlers do outdoors?

- Babies and toddlers will be learning and developing in different ways and at different rates. The key to successful provision outdoors is to make the ongoing observations of individual children's play and current interests the starting point for developing their outdoor experiences.

- A mobile baby who enjoys cruising around indoor furniture will need similar opportunities outdoors and will be fascinated by the different perspectives and views that outdoors provides. The resources that are offered and the experiences that are available will need to be flexible.

- Outdoor provision will be affected by practical issues such as budget, space, storage, and access. Other considerations will include the effect of the seasons, and the presence of older children. The following information may be a useful starting point for staff wanting to provide a good range of experiences to babies and toddlers.

Birth - 11 months

Outdoors is a place full of rich stimulus and sources of learning for very young babies. Even the very youngest will respond to the difference in the outdoor environment.

The sights, smells, and sounds of outdoors will interest and intrigue them. As their head and body control develops, they will turn towards what they see or hear and reach out to whatever catches their attention.

- Provide a safe place from which babies can observe and then begin to explore their outdoor world.

- Very young babies will enjoy lying on the ground (if the earth is damp, use rubber-backed rugs to provide protection).

- Dress babies appropriately for the weather conditions.

Support this stage of development with sensory experiences:

- objects to look at, such as hanging ribbons and streamers, bubbles

- different sounds, wind chimes, classical music, leaves blowing in the breeze

- objects to touch, for example feathers, water, sanded pieces of wood, pebbles, dry sand to trickle over toes (under close carer supervision)

- intriguing smells from a range of plants, such as lavender, rosemary or honeysuckle.

Eight - 20 months

Outdoors is a place where babies and toddlers can begin to find out about the world around them, the things that happen in that world and the opportunities for them to get involved.

As they become more mobile, babies and toddlers want to explore thoroughly everything they see outdoors. They will express their interests through their emerging language skills and will rapidly absorb new words relating to outdoor experiences. Whether crawling or toddling, children this age like to be on the move.

- Continue to provide a safe base but support children as they crawl, clamber, balance and walk.

- Keep them company at their pace as they explore, and share their interests and discoveries.

- Provide lots of hands-on experiences and talk with babies about what are they seeing and doing.

- Tuck dresses in and provide over-trousers or waterproofs to protect children's knees as they crawl around outdoors.

Support this stage of development with natural materials:

- Provide baskets of shells, pebbles, sanded wood, leaves, flowers, pine cones, colourful feathers.

- Tour the garden with mobile babies and toddlers looking at, smelling and touching plants.

- Provide experiences with sand, water and mud.

- Listen for sounds outdoors and provide sound-making opportunities, for example seeds to shake in a clear plastic bottle.

16 - 26 months

Outdoors is a place where curious toddlers can make sense of their world and explore how one experience links to another.

They will delight in opportunities to experiment and combine materials, such as sand or soil and water. They are often enthusiastic 'transporters', endlessly carrying objects from one place to another.

At this age their muscles are stronger and their energy levels are greater. They still have little sense of danger or awareness of hygiene issues, but with the support of an attentive adult, they can begin to accept that some objects should not be touched. They will take pleasure in returning to familiar experiences as well as being intrigued by new ones. Provide appropriate clothing and weather protection so that they can be outdoors all year round.

Support this stage of development with opportunities for children to practise transportation:

- Supply containers of various shapes and sizes, buckets, boxes.

- Provide wheelbarrows, trikes and push-along trucks.

- Offer small baskets and back packs.

- Resource your outdoor areas with plentiful supplies of moveable materials - for example, leaves, conkers, pebbles, sand, water, wooden bricks.

- Supply trowels for scooping up materials, as well as child-sized brooms for sweeping up afterwards.

22 - 36 months

Outdoors is a place where children can learn to make decisions, solve problems and grow in their confidence in their own abilities.

They need lots of time to investigate their outdoor environment purposefully. They will make predictions about what may happen based on their previous play experiences and test out these ideas and theories.

- Join children in their discoveries.

- Talk about their favourite activities with them and supply an increasing range of words to describe what they are doing.

- Continue to support them to play safely and maintain hygiene without unduly limiting their experiences, but encourage children to begin assessing for themselves the level of risk in each activity.

- Provide suitable seasonal protection for all weathers. Help children to think through what they might need to wear outdoors in order to be comfortable.

Support this stage of development with opportunities for investigation and problem-solving:

- Supply equipment for investigating sand and water - for example, sponges, sieves, guttering, bubbles, items that float or sink, ice cubes, sand wheels and water pumps, funnels, hoses, brushes, spades and rakes.

- Observe minibeasts under old logs or pieces of carpet. Provide bug boxes, magnifiers and simple factual information and pictures.

- Observe seasonal changes and the impact of the weather. Offer children first-hand experiences in snow, rain, and wind.

- Provide large boxes and blankets for making into camps and dens.

- Set up low-level obstacle courses to provide new and varied physical challenges.

Gail Ryder Richardson is senior development officer (early years), Learning through Landscapes

OUTDOOR PROVISION IN THE EYFS

The statutory framework (page 35) states:

'Wherever possible, there should be access to an outdoor play area, and this is the expected norm for providers. In provision where outdoor play space cannot be provided, outings should be planned and taken on a daily basis (unless circumstances make this inappropriate, for example unsafe weather conditions).'

The practice guidance (page 7) states:

'Children must have opportunities to play indoors and outdoors. All early years providers must have access to an outdoor play area which can benefit the children. If a setting does not have direct access to an outdoor play area, then they must make arrangements for daily opportunities for outdoor play in an appropriate nearby location.'

The 'Principles into Practice' card ('Enabling Environments - The learning environment') states:

'A rich and varied environment supports children's learning and development. It gives them the confidence to explore and learn in secure and safe yet challenging indoor and outdoor spaces'.

SAFE AND SOUND

For some practitioners, the task of maintaining safety and hygiene outdoors with very young children appears to be an overwhelming challenge, which can result in children having limited outdoor experiences. So, how can we keep children safe and yet ensure they benefit from the special nature of outdoors?

- Assess risks to enable rather than restrict. The view of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents is that we should aim to provide a play environment that is 'as safe as necessary but not as safe as possible'. A risk assessment that focuses on what we can do to enable and make experiences safer is better than one that aims to remove or restrict children's experiences. In practice this means, for example, being vigilant and attentive while children explore pebbles to ensure that none reach a toddler's mouth, rather than removing all opportunities for playing with pebbles.

- Provide good seasonal protection. Children need access to outdoors all year round. The statutory guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage makes clear that the only exception to children having daily access to outdoors is 'unsafe weather conditions'. A range of good-quality protective clothing will be needed, and should be used as appropriate to the time of year. In some cases this will need supplementing further, such as by providing shade structures, or sheltered areas.

- Join children in their outdoor adventures: Staff who participate enthusiastically in outdoor experiences can introduce hygiene and safety concepts through their interactions with children. Model good hygiene routines for the children, and use positive language to convey important messages - for example, 'We must remember to wash our hands after digging', rather than 'That's dirty, don't touch!' In this way children can begin to understand how to keep themselves safe. They can start to be aware which plants have prickles, what shouldn't go in their mouth, how to clamber up again after a tumble, and when to wash their hands. Being able to assess and understand risk, and keep themselves safe is a vital life skill. Early years practitioners have a key role and responsibility in supporting children and families to achieve this goal outdoors.

- Further information

- Learning through Landscapes is the national school grounds charity, campaigning on behalf of all children for better outdoor environments in education and childcare. www.ltl.org.uk 01962 84 5131, eyo@ltl.org.uk

- Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) is a charity actively involved in the promotion of safety and the prevention of accidents. www.rospa.com.