FUNDING

Self-supporting

DATE

School holidays Easter 2017 - ongoing (except Christmas & Feb until we get shelter!)

Partners

Learn Out There

Now in it’s 5th year of sessions, our Outdoor Club offers children aged 5 -11 years a valuable opportunity to play and learn outdoors throughout the school holidays. Sessions are delivered by Level 3 forest school practitioners and supporting staff, to help children develop skills such as safe and managed fire-lighting, whittling wood to make tools and collaborating in different age groups to build dens and shelters. Other supervised activities might include slack-lining, outdoor cooking and woodland crafts as well as learning about the environment through nature walks and games.

Outdoor club is a child-centered learning and play experience, with days organised around a number of available activities with children choosing what they would like to do. Children are also encouraged to use their imagination to develop their own suggestions for play which are then supported and developed by staff. It’s amazing to see what creative ideas they come up with, from science labs to nature museums to a water filtration system using recycled bottles from their packed lunch, to name but a few.

Outdoor club sessions have a wide mix of regular attenders and new participants. The children grow in confidence the more sessions they attend, and are then entrusted with responsibilities such as managing the safe fire lighting and explaining the rules to newer attendees. Team-work is encouraged between the different age groups, with children of different ages and skills collaborating and helping each other.

  127 campfires

and even more marshmallows toasted!             

765 hours 

of outdoor activity

1435 children

participated in our sessions

1.

TACKLING CHILDHOOD OBESITY with a full day of active outdoor action, no screen time and promotion of good sleep following exposure to fresh air and nature.

2.

PROMOTING GOOD CITIZENSHIP with children learning to work alongside each other learning about our environment and parks and respecting and engaging with different generations of users.

3.

DEVELOPING RESILIENCE - research shows that children are stimulated by the outdoors and typically experience, over time, an increase in their self belief, confidence, learning capacity, enthusiasm, communication, problem-solving skills and emotional well-being.