Outdoor Learning

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. There are direct and indirect health benefits to be gained from this educational concept. The direct benefits are simply from getting people out of a windowless and joyless classroom environment into an environment that is more interesting and more demanding physically. That is a good thing, but outdoor education can also teach people about the value of a different and varied diet, the process of food production and the attractions of exercise and entertainment, in whatever form they might come, in open areas.

Of course that will have a positive effect. That used to be just conjecture on our part and on the part of the experts; there is now evidence to support the view that that is the case. That is what is encouraging: we are going beyond just speculating to being able genuinely to point to evidence that supports that view.

The Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families also came up trumps. It stated:

“Learning outside the classroom is important, and the Department must provide adequate funding to achieve maximum impact…there should be an individual entitlement within the National Curriculum to at least one out of school visit a term.”

On the back of those third-party endorsements, I shall pose two more questions to the Minister. Will the Government reconsider plans to include an entitlement to outdoor learning for everyone in the curriculum? Also, can outdoor learning be included as part of the Ofsted inspection protocol? There is a feeling among members of the teaching profession with whom I have contact that if it is not inspected, it is not important. It is clearly important; Ofsted and the Select Committee have said that it is important. If it is important, let us include it in the inspection protocol, so that everyone knows that it is important and we can cement that in the minds of those responsible for outdoor learning projects.

I represent a seat in west Wales and should therefore like to consider for a moment how the Welsh Assembly Government view the issue. It is encouraging that they are a few lengths ahead of Westminster on this topic. I recognise that the matter is devolved, but we can learn lessons from the Welsh Assembly in this regard. The foundation phase is the Welsh Assembly Government’s approach to learning for children aged three to seven years. My own children have benefited from initiatives such as the Forest school. That involves a perfectly non-contentious regular monthly trip into the great outdoors of Wales, which benefits children from quite a young age in many different ways. The Welsh Assembly Government recognise that. Their framework states:

“The Foundation Phase environment should promote discovery and independence and a greater emphasis on using the outdoor environment as a resource for children’s learning.”

They say that they will aim to

“Provide opportunities for children to experience the outdoor learning environment and to become active learners through the play-based Foundation Phase curriculum.”

I say to the Minister that if that is good enough for the Welsh Assembly, surely it is good enough for the UK as a whole.

To conclude my short contribution on this important topic, I shall make these points. We can now prove that outdoor education improves health, education and social benefits for children, young people and society as a whole. We can increasingly prove that if we can obtain those benefits for children and young adults, the economic benefit for the taxpayer in the long term could also be huge and well worth the investment required now.

I want to finish with two case studies. In my last job, I was involved with a project called Fishing for Schools. We took people who often had severe disadvantages and just put them in an environment that they were not used to. We used to marvel at the way in which lives could be transformed as a consequence of that simple project. We had one pupil called Zach on that programme. His teacher wrote to us after the course had finished and said:

“Zach had been suffering from bullying and was often in trouble with regard to behaviour in school, but since the course he has worked hard, been positive, behaves well and is a more mature and sensible young man—wow, what a difference.”

Alex McBarnet, founder of The Bushcraft Company, came into the world of outdoor education as a result of difficulties that he had had in traditional education. Using his own get-up-and-go spirit and his own inspirational zeal, he started his own company. He said:

“Children who struggle a bit more in the classroom have an opportunity here to shine, and you can actually watch their self esteem grow by the day, which is fabulous.”

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there are many outside bodies that can contribute to outdoor learning? One is the Countryside Alliance, which the hon. Gentleman might have an interest in. Does he see a role for such bodies, whether we are talking about the British Association for Shooting and Conservation or the Countryside Alliance, that could help to benefit young people?

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman makes a point that he knows I will approve of—and I had deliberately not been making it, for exactly that reason. I think that any way in which we can take young people into interesting, challenging, different and adventurous environments and teach them skills that they do not know and introduce them to ways of life, people and communities that they may not usually have any contact with, must be good.

The more of that we can do, the better. I do not say that just as someone who had a personal and professional interest in it, and to some extent still does. I say it because I have seen many examples of people who have benefited. They are not just rural or urban or suburban people, or people from poor backgrounds or rich backgrounds. Everyone who has had the fantastic privilege of coming into contact with the outside world, whether formally or informally, has come away feeling that they have gained something that traditional education could not provide to them. We all have a social responsibility to encourage youth in that respect, but we need help from central Government to break down the barriers that sometimes prevent us from being able to do that.

That leads nicely to my final question to the Minister. I and other hon. Members and organisations out there in the real world think that outdoor learning could bring benefits to the nation and benefits to people who sometimes struggle, through no fault of their own—and often through no fault of their local authority’s or the Government’s—to obtain benefits from the type of education system that we have.

We have a golden opportunity now to improve the lives of people in a number of communities through a few simple initiatives. Of course, that requires funding, but it does not require obscene levels of funding. In fact, it is not funding but an investment, because the downstream economic consequences of doing it will be profoundly beneficial to the nation. It will save us millions of pounds in the long term if we get it right.

I hope that the Minister will grant an audience with herself and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, not only for hon. Members who may be interested in the issue but for representatives of the wide range of outside bodies that have contributed to the debate and made strides in the right direction. If we could get together early in the new year to see whether we could convert what at the moment is a struggling dream into a deliverable reality, this debate will have been a worthwhile use of our Wednesday morning.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) on securing this debate on such an important subject. I also congratulate other hon. Friends on their contributions.

Many children and teachers in my constituency and in the county of Worcestershire benefit from outdoor education. As my hon. Friend made clear, the benefits are substantial. We do not live in a classroom, and it is vital that education provides children with the tools and skills they need for real life. Outdoor education recognises the fact that we live, not in the controlled environment of a classroom, but on a living, breathing planet. As we seek to give future generations a better understanding of issues such as climate change and pollution, learning outdoors gives children a greater appreciation of the importance of our natural environment. Crucially, some skills, such as teamwork, leadership and an appreciation of risk, are far more effectively developed through outdoor education than they ever can be in a classroom.

Coming from an urban constituency in a rural county, I know that outdoor education has a further advantage for the children of my city of Worcester. It teaches them to appreciate the wonderful countryside around them and to understand better the way in which it works and the opportunities that it offers. For centuries, Worcester has been a county town, and the interaction between city and countryside was automatic. In the age of supermarkets, television and video games, however, things are not always that way. Without outdoor education projects, many children in my constituency who live within a mile or two of wonderful woods and fields would quite literally never visit them. The Wii Fit and “The X Factor” are a powerful draw away from the benefits of the outdoors, and parents who are themselves working flat out to support their families are not always able to take their children into the countryside as much as they would like.

Fortunately, Worcestershire long ago realised the benefits of outdoor education and was an early adopter of the forest school scheme, which is enjoyed at many of our primary schools. Having talked to pupils and teachers at schools from Cherry Orchard and Perry Wood to Dines Green, Gorse Hill primary and Lyppard Grange, I have heard countless stories of the enjoyment and benefit that the scheme brings. More important than the stories, however, is the experience itself. In the case of outdoor learning, seeing really is believing. Seeing the excitement of children who are taken out of the classroom and into the natural environment for the first time, one can see how outdoor learning helps to engage some of the most difficult and easily distracted pupils. Seeing the way in which children learn new respect for teachers who can show them physical skills and relish the opportunity to escape the confines of the classroom, one can immediately understand why forest school status is an important tool for retention at many local primaries.

However, outdoor learning is not, and should not be, restricted to the primary sector. At Tudor Grange academy, in the heart of Warndon, outdoor learning is being developed as a key tool and a key opportunity for engaging students. This new academy serves a large population that will benefit from the pupil premium. It replaced a school that struggled for many years to engage its students and to deal with truancy, apathy and high levels of special needs.

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that today’s young people, whether in primary or secondary school, have great awareness of the environment, climate change, litter control, recycling and such things? Does he agree—I think from his remarks that he would—that more needs to be done, and what is already happening needs to be continued?

[Mr Walker]

Absolutely. I completely agree. Through outdoor learning we can give people more of an opportunity to understand those things even better. That is one reason why it is a positive benefit.

Through outdoor learning, the new and energetic leadership of Tudor Grange has found a way to engage some of the most difficult pupils and provide a pathway to work for some of those who were simply uninterested in an academic education. By taking pupils out of the classroom for part of their day and engaging them in work and learning outdoors, staff have found that behaviour is much improved on their return to the classroom. Pupils who would previously disrupt academic classes are prepared to get down to work in maths and English much better, having spent part of the day outside. A local employer, Cobb House fisheries, has given the academy access to its resources, and the environment is used for forestry, animal husbandry, angling and orienteering. It forms part of a year 12 access to work programme but it also provides an environment for engaging 30 at-risk students who have a bespoke curriculum utilising outdoor education as their key hook.

The academy also works closely with a local farm, and a group of very vulnerable students has achieved the BTEC certificate in agriculture there in one year. The students are now doing a BTEC countryside and environment course as part of their programme. Those students are making significant progress in their literacy and numeracy from a very low baseline. They were not engaging with a mainstream curriculum before, and two students on that route had not attended school for two years before the academy opened the courses. They are now in year 11 and on track to achieve the equivalent of a minimum of six GCSEs, with improved attendance and better results across the board.

Outdoor learning at Tudor Grange extends to a cadet force branch and a course in public services, which is proving particularly popular in the academy with students who presented with extreme behavioural difficulties. The course includes a lot of personal health and fitness units, and local residents are now familiar with the sight of groups from the academy running in units around Worcester as part of their training drills. The principal tells me: “This is developing tenacity and determination in students we would never have attached such attributes to before”.

Speaking of the benefits of outdoor learning in Worcestershire, it would be remiss of me not to mention some of the wonderful work that goes on beyond the boundaries of my constituency. My hon. Friends the Members for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff) and for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) would no doubt speak passionately about the excellent schools in their constituencies that provide fantastic opportunities for outdoor learning. However, they are kept away from this debate by ministerial and Select Committee responsibilities respectively. I would like to give a couple of examples of how the positive influence of schools in their patches has been felt as far afield as my own constituency.

Top Barn farm, just beyond my boundaries, is a hugely inspiring centre for outdoor learning and a test base for the care farming movement. Hon. Members will be aware of that movement, and some may feel that it is beyond the scope of the debate, but the work that is being done there, to bring, in particular, children with special needs on to a farming environment, and ensure that they can benefit from learning opportunities there, deserves a mention.

Another institution that I visited recently, which hugely impressed me, was the Madresfield early years centre in west Worcestershire. That wonderful school—my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire was there on Friday—is the product of a vision for outdoor learning and the boundless energy of its founder Alice Bennett, a farmer’s wife who has devoted her life to bringing outdoor learning into a farming environment. It brings children on to the farm as their learning environment and caters for a broad cross-section of society, from those receiving state support and living in social housing to the children of the grandest houses of the area. Each child has at least two half days a week out of doors and children are encouraged to engage with the environment, take constant exercise and relish the opportunities offered by the countryside.

Perhaps I should conclude with the words of the very inspiring head teacher, who recently returned from a visit to Denmark, where she was looking at how outdoor learning is integrated into the system there. She concluded that

“outdoor education should be a human right. Its benefits in motivation and engagement, teaching co-operation and leadership, fitness gain and better attitude are beyond question.”

She also spoke of the miracles that happen outside with special needs children. I hope that the Minister will carefully consider the miraculous benefits of outdoor learning for her forthcoming Green Paper on special needs education.