Jane Jackson – Outdoor Learning Development Officer of the Falkirk Council Education Services Curriculum Support Team worked in partnership with ‘Grounds for Learning’ to deliver a year long CPD programme for 20 Falkirk Council primary teachers.

The teachers were selected from across the authority with every cluster being represented.  As well as being expected to take a lead in outdoor learning in their own schools, the Lead Teachers will be instrumental in establishing OL networks within their clusters.

The course involved the teachers in a wide range of activities with each session involving setting up base camp and getting the fire going.  We experimented with cooking a range of things on the fire including bread, stuffed apples,  soup and marshmallows!

Each session had a curricular focus and included sharing ideas for how literacy, numeracy and science could be delivered in the outdoors.  The main purpose of the course however was to stimulate discussion and thinking about how we could move close to achieving the aim of outdoor learning being embedded within the curriculum.

Some comments from participants include:

“Before undertaking the course I had virtually no understanding of how to use the outdoors as a stimulus for learning. I hate being cold and wet and dirty, but I have loved every minute of the course so far. For me building fires and dens was a small part. The big part was how the outdoors could be used to teach almost anything and how learning outdoors fits into everyday literacy and numeracy tasks quite naturally.”

“Throughout the course I was continually reflecting on how the activities would have made the learning accessible to pupils who I had taught in the past who to whom literacy and numeracy was daunting. It would allow them, at the very least, to start learning at the same level as their peers.”

“I am taking outdoor learning forward in the school next year and cannot wait to develop all that I have learned on the lead teacher programme.”