Supporting communities and families across the country.
Our work in England
Our work in England was started in 1990 after a research project to investigate the state of school grounds in the UK. Whilst there were some great examples many schools had poor grounds and they were not being used to their full potential, we were set up as a charity to change this.
Since that time we have supported schools, early years settings, designers and all who work in and with schools who want to make outdoor learning and play an everyday part of the life of children and young people.
If you would like to find out more about our work, then take a look at the projects we’ve worked on, and those we have planned for the future.
Image Source:Â Malcolm Cochrane
How do we help?
In England we support communities, children and their families in a range of ways, which has included advising the English Department for Education including writing guidance for schools in Building Bulletins 71 & 85 and schools for the future – designing school grounds. We also:
- Run training for teachers and other school staff, early years practitioners, governors, parents, designers and school grounds staff.
- Undertake advisory visits for schools working on a small scale as well as acting as a consultant for design and construction companies working on large-scale projects.
- Run a network of accredited professionals who help us deliver our work to schools.These include landscape architects and other design professionals, educationalists, wildlife and play specialists.
- Represent the school grounds sector on a number of boards and advisory committees and currently sit on the following groups;
- The Council for Learning Outside the Classroom
- Countryside Classroom
- The Children’s Play Policy Forum
- The Play Safety Forum
- Run a wide range of projects with schools and early years settings whilst recently we have built of on our knowledge and experience of working with schools to deliver projects with young homeless people and people living with dementia.
- Write a number of publications for schools. Our membership materials help schools take learning and play outside whilst our toolkits help them to plan and make changes to their grounds.
- Lead the Outdoor Classroom Day in the UK and Ireland, which runs twice a year where we encourage schools to go outside for learning, play and getting close to nature.
- Many of our projects link to research and since we were set up our research has supported our different areas of work.
