{"id":3678,"date":"2021-10-06T16:45:21","date_gmt":"2021-10-06T15:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/earlylevelportal\/?page_id=121"},"modified":"2026-02-03T13:42:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T13:42:27","slug":"nature-pedagogy-reflecting-on-practice","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/earlylevelportal\/nature-pedagogy-reflecting-on-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Nature Pedagogy – reflecting on practice"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nature Pedagogy<\/a><\/h1>\n
\u00a0– Supporting your Self-Evaluation<\/h5>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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Quality of Spaces p20 – Quality, safety and maintenance of spaces<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our physical environment, whether offered indoors or outdoors, is welcoming, fully meets children\u2019s needs, and is well equipped. It gives a strong message to children that they matter. We make the best use of available resources to create, sustain and enhance a motivating physical environment. As a result, children experience high-quality care and learning centred on their needs and interests.<\/p>\n

We recognise the importance of daily outdoor play and the benefits of this for enhancing learning and wellbeing. We support, facilitate and encourage children to explore and build independence. Children are supported to actively explore and learn about the wider world.<\/p>\n

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Quality of Spaces p22 – Children Influence and Affect Change<\/strong><\/p>\n

Through outdoor play, children are learning about sustainability, gaining a deeper understanding of how to care for and preserve their natural environment.<\/p>\n

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Playing, Learning & Developing p27 – Children\u2019s Engagement <\/strong><\/p>\n

We have a strong understanding of how children develop, learn and progress. Our staff skilfully use relevant theory and practice to support their delivery of high-quality play experiences that excite and engage children as they learn. Children are successful, responsible and confident in their play as a result of the high-quality experiences we offer. They are highly motivated and fully engaged by the range of rich, challenging, planned and responsive experiences both indoors and outdoors.<\/p>\n

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Playing, Learning & Developing p28 – Quality of interactions<\/strong><\/p>\n

We enable children to play and learn at their own pace, having fun as they explore the world around them.<\/p>\n

Careful observation allows us to interpret children\u2019s interests and provide opportunities to extend their thinking without directing their play. We use a variety of approaches to respond to children\u2019s cues to support development of self-regulation, empathy, confidence, creativity and curiosity.<\/p>\n

We support children through approaches such as sustained shared thinking, wondering aloud and balancing comments with developmentally appropriate questions to extend and expand their thinking. We understand that interacting and exploring with children is a valuable way to build vocabulary and foster understanding, and a sense of wonder and excitement about the world.<\/p>\n

p31<\/strong><\/p>\n

How well do we support and encourage children\u2019s natural curiosity, creativity and problem solving?<\/p>\n

How do we approach support for children to develop their thinking and problem solving skills?<\/p>\n

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Curriculum p33 – Curriculum rationale and design<\/strong><\/p>\n

Outdoor learning is a valued and embedded part of our curriculum design. It offers rich opportunities for inquiry, exploration and wellbeing, and is planned progressively to support children\u2019s development and learning across curricular areas.<\/p>\n

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Curriculum p36 – Skills for Life and Learning<\/strong><\/p>\n

We provide very good opportunities to support the development of children\u2019s skills for life and learning. This includes a knowledge and understanding of the world in which they live and grow. Children develop these skills through a broad range of experiences within motivating and relevant contexts.<\/p>\n

p37<\/strong><\/p>\n

In what ways does our curriculum foster creativity, enterprise, outdoor learning and learning for sustainability?<\/p>\n

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Learning, Teaching & Assessment p39 – Children\u2019s Learning and Engagement<\/strong><\/p>\n

We make very effective use of indoors, outdoors and the local community to provide high quality, real-life experiences. Our children are motivated and sustain engagement as they interact purposefully with a rich range of challenging and open-ended opportunities across the curriculum. We are highly effective in using the environment to support children\u2019s learning. Children explore, experiment, and develop curiosity and creativity through a wide range of high-quality resources and spaces.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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p11<\/strong><\/p>\n

2.3<\/strong> A child\u2019s right to outdoor play The Care Inspectorate is committed to promoting and improving the quality of outdoor play for children in line with key national policy and guidance which set out national expectations. The most relevant are Getting it Right for Every Child (2008)(7), Curriculum for Excellence 3-18 (2008)(8), National Care Standards: Early Education and Childcare up to the Age of 16 (2009)(9), the Play Strategy for Scotland: Our Vision (2013)(10), the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014(11) and the National Building the Ambition: National Practice Guidance on Early Learning and Childcare(12).<\/p>\n

There is a wide range of early-years services that provide very different models and experiences for children and childcare for their parents. Services care for different age ranges of children and have a variety of opening times as well as being part and full-year provision during the day and during the year. While we acknowledge that every setting is individual, as a minimum we expect children and young people of all ages to experience:<\/p>\n

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    • routine access to a stimulating outdoor play area including daily opportunities to spend time outdoors and, if children attend full-time, part of their day should be spent outdoors<\/li>\n
    • freedom of choice to move between the indoor and outdoor environments, whenever practicable<\/li>\n
    • the opportunity to explore the natural environment <\/strong><\/li>\n
    • access to a range of high-quality outdoor play and learning opportunities throughout the year<\/li>\n
    • resources to support learning and development<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Nature Pedagogy \u00a0– Supporting your Self-Evaluation Quality of Spaces p20 – Quality, safety and maintenance of spaces Our physical environment, whether offered indoors or outdoors, is welcoming, fully meets children\u2019s needs, and is well equipped. It gives a strong message to children that they matter. We make the best use of available resources to create, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7767,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-builder.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3678","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/earlylevelportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/earlylevelportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/earlylevelportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/earlylevelportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7767"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/earlylevelportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3678"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/earlylevelportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19997,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/earlylevelportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3678\/revisions\/19997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/sb\/earlylevelportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}