Feb 8, 2015 | Community Involvement, Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Early Years Outdoors, Technologies
When I visited Highway Farm in October, the Hobbit House immediately grabbed my attention. It is a beautiful, bespoke structure. Naturally I had to find out the story behind its existence. At Highway Farm Activity Centre – where there is an out of school club...
Jan 1, 2015 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Early Years Outdoors
One commonly expressed concern about outdoor nurseries lies around the need for shelter and protection from the elements. Highway Farm is on a windy hill and this concern has been mitigated in several ways. First, the children are dressed for being outside. Second,...
Nov 4, 2014 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Early Years Outdoors
Entrances matter. They provide the first indications of what a school or setting is like inside – or beyond the gate. They convey not just a physical message but also a hidden message about what the establishment values. At Highway Farm and Little Explorers...
Oct 29, 2014 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Early Years Outdoors
Do you ever visit a place and the moment you arrive, a tingle of excitement runs down your spine? This happened to me at Highway Farm. Every tree planted, every stake hammered into the ground and every feature created is part of the never-ending story of how this...
Sep 10, 2014 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Technologies
Recently I came across a series of simple shacks being built for an event. They were created from locally cut saplings in the village of Nida in Lithuania. I really liked the simplicity of the construction and felt it could be a useful project for older children who...
Aug 26, 2014 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Whole School
Saules Gojus is a remarkable school based just outside Vilnius, the capital city of Lithuania. Established in 2004 by Laima Sirutiene, it is a vision of education which recognises the value of humanity and learning from each other. German and English are spoken in...
Jul 30, 2014 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Early Years Outdoors
Maisie’s Children’s Centre is no longer open but the value of this post remains. Often it is hard to find examples of multiage outdoor spaces. This site was for children aged 0-5yrs. At the front of their nursery was a wilder space with shrubs and trees....
Jun 26, 2014 | Community Involvement, Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Health & Wellbeing
I love stumbling across features in school grounds which make me drool. The dirt bike track at Muirfield Primary School in Aberdeen is one of them. It is cool… The community appear to think so too. In the past, most developments in the grounds have been...
Jun 15, 2014 | Art & Music Outdoors, Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces
Do you ever see children interacting with murals on playground walls? Very often murals and boards are a decorative presence rather than a playful presence. They may have originally been a class project. Over the years such projects can loose their meaning to all...
Feb 15, 2014 | Community Involvement, Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces
All over the UK and beyond there are a wide variety of shelters to be found in school grounds. This post looks at some matters to consider if you are considering a fixed shelter and gives a range of examples which go beyond the standard shelters typically found in...
Feb 8, 2014 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Early Years Outdoors, Nature Play & Learning
One of the main reasons to visit a beach or greenspace site is to have different experiences to those at school or nursery. What has particularly interested me, has been the ways in which the environment itself has provided innate differences but also how the...
Jan 25, 2014 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Early Years Outdoors, Technologies
Recently I blogged about my experience of creating suitable shelters when on beach visits with a nursery. I realised as I was gathering photos together that I had examples of other temporary shelters which practitioners use with children, many of which are suitable...
Jan 21, 2014 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces
Most of the time when I am out and about with children, shelter is not a priority simply because I work in school grounds where the classroom is easily accessible. However when working off-site for prolonged periods of time, the need for warmth and shelter goes up my...
Nov 20, 2013 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Early Years Outdoors
Last year, one of my projects at school was to create a sandpit in one part of the grounds, just outside an Additional Support Needs class. The children had been very fond of the sand in a circle of wooden log stumps. It was clear from their constant interest in the...
Nov 9, 2013 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Early Years Outdoors
There is nothing quite like visiting schools, nurseries and other childcare settings to gain ideas and inspiration. I’m always delighted when I get this opportunity. Sometimes, I am asked about good places to see. In my opinion it is not possible to find a...
Oct 20, 2013 | Community Involvement, Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Early Years Outdoors
Do you ever stumble across interesting play spaces? When went for a walk into the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park nearby Aberfoyle. Scottish Forest has been very busy creating an accessible walk that is just right for a young family to complete in an afternoon....
Jul 18, 2013 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Health & Wellbeing
Just before the summer holidays began, I was back up at Inverallochy School. Three years ago, the children and staff began the process of developing their school grounds. When they began, the grounds looked like this: And now they look more like this photo which is...
Jun 12, 2013 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Early Years Outdoors
This week is National School Grounds Week! What better way to celebrate than to share a good news story! At the end of March, one reader, Joanne Cowan, got in touch to ask permission to use some of the photos on this blog to inspire her colleagues to make some changes...
Feb 12, 2013 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces
Developing a school ground for play and learning is not a one-off event. It needs to be integrated into the life of a school year on year. This can involve quite a mindset change. It’s not simply a physical change to the landscape but involves readjusting the...
Feb 1, 2013 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Early Years Outdoors
Whilst in Japan in 2012, I had the opportunity to visit a nursery. As usual, I thought it might be interesting to share a few photos of the outdoor space. This nursery is situated in a village. It was a stunning location. The nursery was going to be moved to another...
