Every weekday during term time, our children pass through their school grounds, one way or another. On most days, they will play in parts of their school grounds at break and lunch times. They may even have opportunities to learn outside as part of their school day, perhaps as part of a P.E. or science lesson. However, for most of their school years, the outside space of a school site is simply the backdrop to our children’s lives, and their use of the space is passive. As part of our Wilder School work at Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, I have been interested in finding ways to change this relationship between children and place. 

School grounds are often full of untapped potential in terms of encouraging children to connect with nature. What better place to have meaningful contact with nature, than a place that children already spend so much time, learning and building friendships. 

30 minutes to connect – Ideas for making short activities meaningful:

We have recently been running sessions with Year 2 children at Sarisbury Infant School, with the stated aim of enhancing the wellbeing of pupils. Each class participated in three, weekly, 30-minute activities and we then delivered an INSET workshop to inspire and equip the staff to continue taking their children outside. Activities have included:

• Meeting the trees – The school is lucky enough to have some spectacular, mature trees, and we wanted to encourage children to be curious about them. This was done using a selection of classic sensory activities from which children could choose, including bark rubbing, blindfold games, and collecting leaves.
• Creating stick characters – Children used wool, sticks and other found objects to create characters. Their imaginations were vivid and varied and they confidently told us all about their creations. Some went on the make homes and adventures for their stick characters.
• Bug hunting (The oldest trick in the book)– A very simple but always well-loved activity; we looked for and observed invertebrates using bug pots, I.D. guides and sorting trays. 

Having only 30 minutes with each class on each occasion, we needed a way to make the activities memorable and impactful and to link them together. I found humour, imagination and sensory exploration to be good tools to build a ‘lore’ around the programme. There was also a thread of character and identity in the way we ‘met’ the trees, the stick people and the invertebrates. The aim was to instil the feeling that the non-human living things in the school grounds have intrinsic value and are worthy of attention and curiosity. It was wonderful to overhear children saying hello to the trees when we arrived for the final session.

I would encourage teachers to go into their school’s grounds and look around with fresh eyes. Look for ideas for stories and characters in amongst the plants and animals. Look for opportunities to weave sensory exploration and creative play into activities. Then, plan to take your class out, even if it is just for a short amount of time, to do something simple, fun and memorable. Then perhaps we can take a step towards bringing nature out from the background of children’s lives and into the foreground.

The Sarisbury Infants Wilder School programme was delivered by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife team from Swanwick Lakes, and the cost was subsidised by our funding partner, NATS.