Task 4B – Why I do it?

My idea came about from development work I am conducting into Learning for Sustainability. This started with involvement in British Council Connecting Classrooms University of Edinburgh Learning for Sustainability course in which my understanding of LfS changed. I realised how much LfS is at the heart of Curriculum for Excellence and is not an added extra or simply new method of teaching. I saw that LfS is more than saving the planet and links with social, economic and political issues as well as skills needed for learning, life and work. A reading I have found very useful was the Core Skills document from British Council which has helped me to make the links between LfS and sustainable skills. This is what made me look into how we can develop these skills in our school. In my setting, we frequently comment that our pupils need more resilience, that problem solving skills need work and that we need to provide more opportunities for play further up the school, and not just in the early years. With a focus on ‘loose parts play’ I conducted research into case studies using Education Scotland links and saw that each school has used their community and surroundings to develop this play in a unique way that will work in their setting. I have seen that doing this is the best way to get all staff and pupils on board and invested in the idea and that each school needs to devise their own experiences and cannot just replicate what is being done elsewhere. The case studies and ‘The Theory of Loose Parts’, ‘This Place is Like a Building Site’ and ‘Loose Parts Play – A toolkit’ were some of the readings that helped  to build a picture of the good practice that is occuring nationally and has enabled me to pull on the elements from these that work in my own setting to set up ‘loose parts play’.

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