Outdoor Learning

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hart]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am aware of that charity and the good work that it does. I am also aware of countless other charities that offer similar, if not identical, services.

I stated earlier that this debate was not about the town versus the countryside. Indeed it is not, and we must be careful not to fall into the trap, as I have myself, of seeing the only benefit of outdoor learning to be that of teaching urban children about rural ways. My hon. Friend’s intervention makes it clear that plenty of people are enthusiastic about reaping the benefits of outdoor learning, but cannot do so either because of insufficient funding through the charitable sector, or because of obstacles due to health and safety legislation, bureaucracy or Government funding.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, will she consider reviewing whether current teacher training provides new teachers with the skills to lead outdoor learning activities in the first place? Secondly, will she review the “rarely covers” guide to residential visits and fieldwork, and look at whether part of the pupil premium may be used for that purpose?

Emerging evidence points to the direct and indirect health benefits of outdoor learning, including personal well-being and—the latest catchphrase—“happiness.” The current gaming epidemic does not lend itself to our mission of stirring a child’s interest in the outside world. A staggering 53 computer games were released on to the market in April 2010, and it is easy to deduce that we cannot leave it to the children to discover the outside world. It is our responsibility to take them there.

Activities such as walking, cycling and riding can burn up to 380 calories an hour. Green spaces can stabilise anger in young people, which can help prevent antisocial behaviour. Outdoor education could therefore play a key role in reducing the amount of permanent and fixed exclusions for physical and verbal abuse in schools, which currently run at the eye-watering level of 300,000 cases per year.

Outdoor learning could also help to reduce the cost of youth crime and obesity, which is estimated at an even more staggering and depressing £5 billion per annum for the taxpayer to pick up. Of course, evidence is an essential prerequisite of any progress that we make on this topic. I shall start with what Ofsted had to say about it. In 2008, Ofsted published a thematic report that stated:

“When planned and implemented well, learning outside the classroom contributed significantly to raising standards and improving pupils’ personal, social and emotional development.”

It went on to recommend that schools and colleges should

“ensure that their curriculum planning includes sufficient well structured opportunities for all learners to engage in learning outside the classroom as a key, integrated element of their experience”

and

“ensure equal and full access for all learners to learning outside the classroom”.

In a similar study in 2006, the National Trust stated:

“We looked at whether schoolchildren’s learning about their local environment would influence the way they treat it.

We found that not only was this the case, but high-quality out-of-classroom learning also influenced how children behave and the lifestyle choices they make.

It shows the potential for school trips not just to change children’s lives, but the lives of whole communities.”

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the timeliness of the debate. Does he agree that in addition to the issues that he is outlining from those surveys, the battle against childhood obesity can be taken further by learning outside the classroom? It can contribute to that battle, which unfortunately as a society we do not seem to be taking seriously.

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. There are direct and indirect health benefits to be gained from this educational concept. The direct benefits are simply from getting people out of a windowless and joyless classroom environment into an environment that is more interesting and more demanding physically. That is a good thing, but outdoor education can also teach people about the value of a different and varied diet, the process of food production and the attractions of exercise and entertainment, in whatever form they might come, in open areas.

Of course that will have a positive effect. That used to be just conjecture on our part and on the part of the experts; there is now evidence to support the view that that is the case. That is what is encouraging: we are going beyond just speculating to being able genuinely to point to evidence that supports that view.

The Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families also came up trumps. It stated:

“Learning outside the classroom is important, and the Department must provide adequate funding to achieve maximum impact…there should be an individual entitlement within the National Curriculum to at least one out of school visit a term.”

On the back of those third-party endorsements, I shall pose two more questions to the Minister. Will the Government reconsider plans to include an entitlement to outdoor learning for everyone in the curriculum? Also, can outdoor learning be included as part of the Ofsted inspection protocol? There is a feeling among members of the teaching profession with whom I have contact that if it is not inspected, it is not important. It is clearly important; Ofsted and the Select Committee have said that it is important. If it is important, let us include it in the inspection protocol, so that everyone knows that it is important and we can cement that in the minds of those responsible for outdoor learning projects.

I represent a seat in west Wales and should therefore like to consider for a moment how the Welsh Assembly Government view the issue. It is encouraging that they are a few lengths ahead of Westminster on this topic. I recognise that the matter is devolved, but we can learn lessons from the Welsh Assembly in this regard. The foundation phase is the Welsh Assembly Government’s approach to learning for children aged three to seven years. My own children have benefited from initiatives such as the Forest school. That involves a perfectly non-contentious regular monthly trip into the great outdoors of Wales, which benefits children from quite a young age in many different ways. The Welsh Assembly Government recognise that. Their framework states:

“The Foundation Phase environment should promote discovery and independence and a greater emphasis on using the outdoor environment as a resource for children’s learning.”

They say that they will aim to

“Provide opportunities for children to experience the outdoor learning environment and to become active learners through the play-based Foundation Phase curriculum.”

I say to the Minister that if that is good enough for the Welsh Assembly, surely it is good enough for the UK as a whole.

To conclude my short contribution on this important topic, I shall make these points. We can now prove that outdoor education improves health, education and social benefits for children, young people and society as a whole. We can increasingly prove that if we can obtain those benefits for children and young adults, the economic benefit for the taxpayer in the long term could also be huge and well worth the investment required now.

I want to finish with two case studies. In my last job, I was involved with a project called Fishing for Schools. We took people who often had severe disadvantages and just put them in an environment that they were not used to. We used to marvel at the way in which lives could be transformed as a consequence of that simple project. We had one pupil called Zach on that programme. His teacher wrote to us after the course had finished and said:

“Zach had been suffering from bullying and was often in trouble with regard to behaviour in school, but since the course he has worked hard, been positive, behaves well and is a more mature and sensible young man—wow, what a difference.”

Alex McBarnet, founder of The Bushcraft Company, came into the world of outdoor education as a result of difficulties that he had had in traditional education. Using his own get-up-and-go spirit and his own inspirational zeal, he started his own company. He said:

“Children who struggle a bit more in the classroom have an opportunity here to shine, and you can actually watch their self esteem grow by the day, which is fabulous.”