Outdoor Learning

Sarah Teather Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. I was going to say that it is a great pleasure to participate in this debate, until I heard the end-point of the speech by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan). His speech began so well and ended with such nonsense, but I guess that the Opposition have to be the Opposition and demonstrate that they oppose everything.

I want to congratulate the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) on securing this debate on a really important topic. It is good to see Westminster Hall so full of people. I am aware of the hon. Gentleman’s previous role as chief executive of the Countryside Alliance and of his involvement in charitable work with that organisation to promote outdoor learning. It is really good to see that he is continuing that work now as a Member of this House.

We have had a good and well informed debate. The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) gave particular detail about the situation in Wales. There were contributions from former teachers, my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) and the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). We have heard about a number of examples of outdoor learning from Members’ constituencies. The hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) spoke about forest schools. I was very interested to hear about the particular examples given by the hon. Members for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) and for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson).

The Government absolutely believe that outdoor learning is vital and provides so many opportunities for young people to expand their horizons and to put learning into context, so that they can actually see what is happening and are not just learning the theory. Moreover, outdoor learning provides opportunities to break down barriers. It is very easy for someone to fulfil a role if they go into the same place and perform the same function every day. However, when a group of people are taken out of that place and put somewhere else, it breaks down the old traditional roles, which of course is exactly why outdoor learning has the impact that it does on behaviour. It is able suddenly to boost the confidence of many children who may not succeed in other activities in the classroom.

Many hon. Members began their contribution by declaring an interest in this sector and I should probably declare an interest too, in that my brother works for the Outward Bound Trust as a fundraiser. When I listened to him talk about the history of the trust, I was fascinated. It is perhaps worth saying something about that history as it is really relevant to the debate.

The Outward Bound Trust began as part of the war effort in 1941, so it will celebrate its 70th anniversary next year. It began because of the experience of people who had watched merchant seamen after their ships had been torpedoed. Some merchant seamen survived longer than others and it was really obvious that the ones who did not survive were the young people. So a lot of young seamen were taken out of their ships and taught survival skills and team-building exercises, and it was found that those activities had a real impact on their ability to cope in strenuous situations. After the war, the effect of that training on those particular seamen was so great that the trust decided to roll out the training to many other young people. Last year, it was able to provide 26,000 young people with opportunities for such training, much of which was funded through charitable donations.

So the Outward Bound Trust is a prime example of the organisations that many hon. Members have spoken about during the debate, from forest schools to Farming and Countryside Education, which the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) spoke about. Often, those organisations have a very strong charitable arm and so they are able to take young people who could not otherwise afford those outdoor experiences and really change their perspective on life. I want to pay tribute to all the organisations, whether they are private or charitable, that do this kind of work for young people.

However, it is important to say that the Government view outdoor learning as being much wider than just that type of adventure activity. Outdoor learning is not just about getting out into the countryside, although that is absolutely vital. Many of the contributions to the debate have been about the necessity of giving children experience of the countryside. A couple of hon. Members spoke about the fact that many of our young people do not know, for example, how food is produced. All of those activities are part of outdoor learning, but they are not the only aspect. Getting out and experiencing music, theatre or the visual arts is also part of outdoor learning. Furthermore, outdoor learning is a vital part of understanding history and field trips in science and geography are all important.

Not all of those trips have to be trips to places that are a long way away. In fact, the hon. Member for Cardiff West gave the example of a school trip in his constituency that stayed very close to the school. Sometimes such activities can take place just outside the school and even occasionally within the school gates. Getting out of the classroom is what is so vital.

The hon. Gentleman also spoke about the previous Government’s record on outdoor learning. I absolutely acknowledge that the previous Government invested an awful lot of effort, time and money in trying to improve outdoor learning. However, as the Children, Schools and Families Committee stated very clearly in its report on outdoor learning, we are not there yet and we are a long way away from being where we need to be. Far too few young people have the opportunity for outdoor learning and there are all sorts of reasons for that, which were drawn out in the Select Committee report. I just want to refer to a few of those reasons.

I think that part of the problem is related to an overcrowded curriculum, which my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion spoke about. There are so many compulsory elements in the curriculum that it is difficult to find the space in the day for teachers to explore outdoor activity. A number of hon. Members were trying to request that extra things should be put into the curriculum, particularly in relation to outdoor learning. In the same way that the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole suggested one thing out, one thing in, I am resisting the tendency to put extra things into the curriculum. However, I can perhaps offer a word of comfort to hon. Members who raised this issue. The national curriculum review is particularly looking at what should go into the curriculum. For subjects such as science and geography, it may well be that the review looks at the particular components of outdoor learning. I do not want to pre-empt the review, but I will say that it is ongoing.

[Alun Cairns]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sarah Teather]

I have only three minutes left and I have quite a lot still to say, so I had better not give way just now.

I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire for raising issues of health and safety. I absolutely agree with him on those issues and it was helpful of him to put on record the statistics that he cited about how rare difficult events are. The Government take very seriously the report by Lord Young and it is absolutely vital that we get out the message that such difficult events are very rare and that we should take a much more common-sense approach to outdoor learning.

The Government believe that, by offering more flexible funding to schools with less ring-fencing, we have a much better chance of encouraging schools to take up opportunities for outdoor learning. For example, schools are free to spend the pupil premium on supporting particular activities for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. If the priority is to hire a minibus, that might be what a school chooses to do. However, I will undertake to examine the suggestion of the hon. Member for North Swindon about an insurance scheme for schools that is bought en bloc, to see if there is anything that can be done with respect to that suggestion.

The White Paper on schools also speaks specifically about “access to live theatre” and encouraging

“the appreciation of the visual and plastic arts and work with our great museums and libraries to support their educational mission.”

That is something that the Government take very seriously.

I have mentioned history, and the understanding of citizenship is also very important, which is precisely why we support the Holocaust Educational Trust in its programme “Lessons from Auschwitz”. I have experienced that programme myself and it is a fantastic programme that offers the opportunity to change people’s perspectives. For those who have not had that experience at school, the Government are providing extra opportunities through the national citizen service, which will give young people an opportunity to experience outdoor activity first-hand at the start of that scheme and really change their lives.

The hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire asked a number of questions. With respect to teacher training, a paper on that subject will be released next year and I will ensure that his comments about teacher training are drawn to the attention of the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), who is the Minister with responsibility for schools.

With respect to the foundation stage, I will ensure that the comments that have been made about it during the debate are fed into Dame Clare Tickell’s review of the early years foundation stage.

With regard to the “rarely cover” guidance, if schools plan trips in advance that guidance should not really be an issue. However, the Department for Education is looking at the guidance.

With respect to the idea of an entitlement for one particular outdoor learning activity, I think that this process is much more about understanding outdoor learning as a part of a child’s whole learning experience. Just having one trip does not really meet the need for outdoor learning. What we need to do is to mainstream outdoor learning into the whole way that we are looking at the curriculum, which is why I made the point earlier about geography and science trips.

[Mr Joe Benton (in the Chair)]

Order.