At Chalford Hill School we are very proud that all our children enjoy regular outdoor learning opportunities in a variety of local, natural settings. Outdoor Learning is central to our school aims and curriculum. We were the first school in England to be awarded ‘Outdoor Schools’ accreditation.

Staff work hard to ensure that opportunities for learning outside the classroom are purposeful and further enhance the national curriculum.

Recent outdoor opportunities include:

• YR made hedgehog homes in the school garden
• Y1 visited the woods to make natural art
• Y2 cooked spiced omelettes in the garden as part of their topic on India
• Y3 measured their shadows on the playground to understand how the earth revolves around the sun
• Y4 learned about place value in maths by counting seeds on the playground
• Y5 visited the woods to build shelters as part of their Homelessness topic
• Y6 learned about adaptations of animals by searching for bugs in the school garden

Sadly, the popularity of indoor pastimes like computer games and TV, coupled with factors like increased road traffic and understandable parental concerns over safety, has inevitably led to a decline in the amount of time children spend outdoors. The idea behind Outdoor Schools is to address this issue through primary schools.