Description
Out to Play
Guidance and advice for early learning and childcare settings and practitioners on how to access outdoor spaces to create safe, nurturing and inspiring outdoor learning experiences.
“Playing and learning outdoors is life enhancing. Jumping in puddles, playing hopscotch in the street, exploring your local wood and throwing snowballs with friends is not just the stuff of fond childhood memories. It is how children grow, learn and discover. Playing outdoors is good for children’s health and wellbeing, it develops their social skills and it helps with cognitive development, preparing them for a lifetime of learning. Research from around the world shows the huge benefits of playing outdoors.
At Inspiring Scotland, we want all Scotland’s children to have the best possible start in life. And we passionately believe that having fun outdoors from an early age is the best way we can help our children to thrive. Embedding outdoor play into the fabric of young people’s lives will require us all to work together. Nurseries, schools, councils, community groups and families all have a role to play in supporting our children to get outside but we recognise that many people don’t know where to start. In producing Out to Play, we hope to equip you with the skills and knowledge that you need to make playing and learning outdoors an everyday experience for our children.
I would like to thank Scottish Government for their consistent and passionate support for outdoor play and learning, and to acknowledge their commitment to making Scotland the best place to grow up. And I would like to thank Care Inspectorate and many other partners for producing this guide alongside us and their commitment to increasing outdoor play and learning. We believe that Out to Play will be an invaluable publication that can support us all to do the best for our children, and to reengage us all with our beautiful environment, making Scotland an even more wonderful place to live for generations to come.”
 Celia Tennant Chief Executive – Inspiring Scotland
