Outdoor Learning

Robin Walker Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[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?