St Vincent's Catholic Primary School

“How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!”
Psalm 133.1

The Curriculum Outdoors

The Curriculum Outdoors

Introduction

Enjoyment is the birth right of every child. Children learn better when they are excited and engaged – but what excites and engages them best is truly excellent teaching, which challenges them and shows them what they can do. When there is joy in what they are doing, they learn to love learning. Excellence and Enjoyment (DCSF-2003)

Our outdoor learning initiative aims to foster children’s love of learning. At St Vincent’s Catholic Primary School, we believe that all children have the right to experience the unique and special nature of being outdoors. We further believe that it is important to enable children to use the outside environment as a context for learning.

Rationale and aims

We believe that the outdoor learning environment has much to offer children. It can provide relevant, engaging experiences that support learning in all areas of the curriculum. These can be presented through building on existing outdoor play, transferring activities normally carried out indoors, school garden projects, environmental education or off-site visits. It puts children into a real life learning context where they can apply skills learnt in the classroom to specific investigations and this links with our Project Based Learning initiative.

Direct experience outdoors is powerful, motivating and has impact and credibility. The results from outdoor learning can be instantaneous. It invites active and engaging styles of teaching, which cater for a range of learning styles, ultimately having a positive impact on behaviour.

Through skilled teaching, outdoor experiences readily become a stimulating source of fascination, personal growth and can lead to breakthroughs in learning.

Active learning readily develops the learning skills of enquiry, experiment, feedback, reflection, review, communication, problem solving, an enterprising attitude and cooperative learning – to name only some of the benefits.

Outdoor Learning can help to bring learning alive. For this reason the outdoors can have an impact on all areas of the curriculum. Outdoor learning also provides experiential opportunities that allow pupils to respond positively to opportunities, challenges and responsibilities as well as providing opportunities to manage risk and cope with change.

Furthermore, our Outdoor Learning initiative is closely linked with Forest Schools, which further enhances the children’s learning experience. The Forest school ethos encompasses practical activities in the natural environment. These are designed to promote the development of self-esteem and emotional intelligence, which lead to improved self-confidence. This powerful approach enables young children to be independent, self-motivated, courageous, and considerate and sets them up for lifelong learning. There are many important issues to be considered here. Ultimately we aim to remain true to the Forest School ethos and approach.

Objectives of Outdoor Learning

  • To raise the profile of Outdoor Learning.
  • To empower children to take ownership of their learning, allowing their minds and bodies to thrive
  • To encourage children to develop the skills to solve problems, and become resilient and reflective learners
  • To develop skills of communication, cooperation and collaborative learning.
  • To provide a challenging, safe and secure environment within which children can take and manage risks.
  • To encourage close links with parents and the school in celebrating our outdoor space and the rich learning that can take place within it.
  • To encourage children to care for their environment.


Health and Safety

At St. Vincent’s we will support children in taking risks within a safe and secure environment. Pupils will be taught to manage risks. It is important to ensure that the outdoor environment offers challenges and teaches the children how to be safe and aware of others. Outdoor learning opportunities will be grasped when available and teachers will assess risk. The schools’ policies relating to Health, Safety and Risk Assessment should be referred to and applied prior to any outdoor learning activity that may require additional support.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Assessment of the children’s learning will be valued equally indoors and outdoors and should be part of the same process.

Managing the delivery of Outdoor Learning

Through the monitoring of teaching and learning e.g. forward planning meetings, classroom observation, teacher’s self-evaluations and other school procedures we closely monitor the use of outdoor learning as a key element of the learning experience at St. Vincent’s. We provide support and professional development to enable staff to feel confident in developing their expertise and knowledge base to adapt practice to include opportunities for learning beyond the confines of the classroom.

Curriculum Outdoors Blog

We have a Curriculum Outdoors blog page. Click below to view.
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Learning in the Forest Blog

We have a Learning in the Forest blog page. Click below to view.
Click Here

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Curriculum Intent

At St Vincent’s it is our INTENT is to enable ALL children to thrive through the opportunities we provide them with, in order to:

  • Live their lives by the Gospel and Vincentian values instilled in them at school.
  • Understand that everyone has the right and responsibility to live in our world constructively and ensure that we leave it in a better state than when we entered it by living and working through the principles of Catholic Social Teaching in line with the UNCRC (United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child)
  • Experience creativity across the curriculum through specialist art and dance lessons and opportunities to take part in art, music, dance and creative writing competitions.
  • Know the joy of outdoor learning, the rich biodiversity within our school grounds and locality and develop a responsibility for the environment we share as stewards.
  • Understand their place in the world, globally and locally, knowing the history of our school, Mill Hill and the Daughters of Charity and knowing where our diverse community members have their roots across the world.
  • Be ready and well-prepared for their next steps in life, having high aspirations for themselves and for others because they have experienced success and a belief in learning from mistakes.
  • Have a life-long curiosity, stimulated by the driving questions of Project Based Learning approach to the curriculum fostering inquiry and independent learning skills, which give confidence to ask big questions about the world.
  • Be literate and numerate having experienced a rich variety of texts to stimulate and excite the mind while developing skills in investigating and problem solving to enable them to excel in their future passions.
  • Be confident and happy young people that have a broad understanding and tolerance of the world and others around them with excellent communication skills honed by their experience of Restorative Justice and respect of the dignity and wishes of the individual.

Curriculum Context

St Vincent’s is a 1.5 form entry school with 285 children ranging from 4 -11. Children come predominantly from the parishes of Sacred Heart in Mill Hill and St Anthony’s in Edgware.

Children come from a diverse range of socio-economic backgrounds, speak 17 different languages and hail from 26 different ethnic groups. The curriculum we present, and promote, to the children is an endeavour to reflect these differences by providing opportunities to explore the different countries, languages and customs our children are part of through the projects they investigate. We have looked closely at the context of our school, the backgrounds of the children and how life is for a child growing up in North London today. We have used the underlying principles of our Catholic Faith and the example of our namesake St Vincent to create a set of values which lie at the heart of our curriculum.

We are aware of the changing nature of society and the pressures faced by young children as they enter the next stage of their education. The rise in Mental Health related issues has been widely documented across the media. Therefore, issues such as internet safety and the enormous impact across society of social media are at the forefront of our minds when planning our curriculum. With the current worldwide concerns relating to Covid 19, racial justice, equality and diversity, as well as gender and economic background, we feel it is our duty to prepare the children through a concerted focus on building independence, resilience and communication skills linked to our Vincentian Values.