1. Promoting Emotional Intelligence through outdoor learning
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2. Don’t prepare the path for the child, prepare the child for the path.
Anonymous
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3. What is Outdoor Learning?
Outdoor Learning is a broad term that includes: outdoor play in the early years, school grounds projects, environmental education, recreational and adventure activities, personal and social development programmes, expeditions, team building, leadership training, management development, education for sustainability, adventure therapy ... and more. Outdoor Learning does not have a clearly defined boundary but it does have a common core...
All forms of Outdoor Learning value direct experience
Outdoor Learning is active learning in the outdoors Outdoor Learning is real learning
Outdoor Learning broadens horizons and stimulates new interests .
Outdoor Learning is becoming more integrated
The “What is Outdoor Learning?” research was undertaken by Dr. Roger Greenaway.The idea for the research project came from the English Outdoor Council, and has been funded by IOL. "What is Outdoor Learning?" research was published in 2005.
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An approach to outdoor learning that considers experiences rather than equipment, places children at the centre of the provision being made.
The process of learning taking place in individual children should be the focus of any provision, not the products made or equipment available. All children are unique and have different interests and skills. As such, it may not be appropriate for all children to be asked to make a particular item or do a certain activity, as it may not be developmentally appropriate to that particular individual or may not fit in with their current schemata of the world.
Good outdoor provision does not rely on expensive equipment. Good provision comes from making the most of the space and resources you have combined with a positive, enthusiastic and engaged attitude from adults. Together these facilitate meaningful learning experiences for the young children in your care that will vitally support their holistic development.
Early Years Outdoor Learning - A Toolkit for Developing Early Years Outdoor Provision Norfolk Council
PAUSE FOR THOUGHT Could this not be said regardless of a child’s age?
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5. What is PSED and why is it important?
Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED) are three building blocks of future success in life.
They are closely linked to each other and often bracketed together as one area of learning and development.
Personal development (Being me) – how we come to understand who we are and what we can do, how we look after ourselves.
Social development (Being social) – how we come to understand ourselves in relation to others, how we make friends, understand the rules of society and behave towards others.
Emotional development (Having feelings) – how we come to understand our own and others’ feelings and develop our ability to ‘stand in someone else’s shoes’ and see things from their point of view, referred to as empathy.
(Social and Emotional Aspects of Development, 2008)
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6. Emotional Intelligence
"All learning has an emotional base." Plato
The ability to express and control our own emotions is important, but so is our ability to understand, interpret, and respond to the emotions of others.
Psychologists refer to this ability as emotional intelligence, and some experts even suggest that it can be more important than IQ.
Emotional intelligence is the innate potential to feel, use, communicate, recognise, remember, describe, identify, learn from, manage, understand and explain emotions.
Emotions can play an important role in how we think and behave.
First, it is important to understand the three critical components of an emotion.
Our emotions are composed of
A subjective component
A component
An expressive component
These different elements can play a role in the function and purpose of our
emotional responses.
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The EQ concept argues that IQ, or conventional intelligence, is too narrow; that there are wider areas of Emotional Intelligence that dictate and enable how successful we are.
Success requires more than IQ (Intelligence Quotient), which has tended to be the traditional measure of intelligence, ignoring essential behavioural and character elements.
The development of emotional intelligence:
Enables individuals to become happier, independent adults
Gives access to choices that will make a positive impact on the way we
engage with our families, communities and the environment we live in
Daniel Goleman suggests that it is the level of our emotional intelligence which will either facilitate or hinder our ability to function effectively in the world.
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The 5 domains of EI
Self Awareness
Self Regulation
Social Skills
Self Motivation
Empathy
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal
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So what’s the link?
When outdoors, children have the freedom to explore and develop their physical
boundaries, to take risks and to discover the real world with all their senses.
This can have huge positive effects on a child’s self esteem and confidence. Outside can
be liberating; children have room to be active, noisy, messy and work on a large
scale. Outside is dynamic; you cannot predict what might happen, and as such it
provides opportunities to experience and develop emotions, what they feel like and
how to deal with them.
NORFOLK COUNTY COUNCIL Early Years Outdoor Learning
A Toolkit for Developing Early Years Outdoor Provision
‘Provide children with access to environments that stimulate their need to explore
and which safely challenge them... The aim is to develop their risk awareness
And an understanding of their own abilities as necessary life skills.’
(Promoting physical activity, active play and sport for pre-school and school-age children and
young people in family, pre-school, school and community settings, NHS, 2008)
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10. Solid Foundations JL/NATURESFOOTPRINTS/2014
I’m me
(Personal growth and fulfilment)
I’m known
I’m part of a group / I belong
I feel safe enough
I’m comfortable enough now
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Clear expectations
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CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE LEARNING:
Playing and Exploring
(engagement)
Finding out and exploring:
Showing curiosity about objects, events and people
Using senses to explore the world around them
Engaging in open-ended activity
Showing particular interests
Playing with what they know:
Pretending objects are things from their experience
Representing their experiences in play
Taking on a role in their play
Acting out experiences with other people
Being willing to ‘have a go’:
Initiating activities
Seeking challenge
Showing a ‘can do’ attitude
Taking a risk, engaging in new experiences, and learning by trial and error
Active Learning
(motivation)
Being involved and concentrating:
Maintaining focus on their activity for a period of time
Showing high levels of energy, fascination
Not easily distracted
Paying attention to details
Keeping on trying:
Persisting with activity when challenges occur
Showing a belief more effort or a different approach will pay off
Bouncing back after difficulties
Enjoying achieving what they set out to do:
Showing satisfaction in meeting their own goals
Being proud of how they accomplished something – not just the end result
Enjoying meeting challenges for their own sake rather than external rewards or praise
Creating and Thinking Critically (thinking)
Having their own ideas:
Thinking of ideas
Finding ways to solve problems
Finding new ways to do things
Making links:
Making links and noticing patterns in their experience
Making predictions
Testing their ideas
Developing ideas of grouping, sequences, cause and effect
Choosing ways to do things:
Planning, making decisions and how to approach a task, solve a problem and reach a goal
Checking how well their activities are going
Changing strategy as needed
Reviewing how well the approach worked
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Springboards
definition – a beginning from which an enterprise is launched
- anything serving as the starting point or providing the impetus for something else (your dictionary.com)
- anything that gives a person or thing energy or impulse, or that serves to launch or begin something (allwords.com)
books, stories, poems, puppets, photos, songs, games, resources or the weather itself may provide children with the spark they need to take their ideas and learning in a direction of their choosing.
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14. Play time
“For a small child there is no division between playing and learning; between the things he or she does ‘just for fun’ and things that are ‘educational.’ The child learns while living and any part of living that is enjoyable is also play.
Penelope Leach (psychologist and author)
“It is in playing, and only in playing, that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self.”
D.W. Winnicott (British pediatrician)
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Looking at the whole person / child
(it is important to remember that a child grows and develops not in separate areas but as a whole (HOLISTIC DEVELOPMENT), therefore we need to provide experiences that provide opportunities for this to happen)
LINGUISTIC
INTELLECTUAL
PHYSICAL
SPIRITUAL
SOCIAL
EMOTIONAL
Experiences that provide opportunities for this to happen ensure success at some level for each child – may not be most mathematically minded but may be really good communicators / physically very confident with a real awareness of self and others, space, knows how
There are areas of development that children undergo as they grow to be young adults.  These are not like steps of a ladder leading to higher and higher levels. Rather, they are like a spiral of stages through which a child cycles endlessly as they grow and mature.
(David J Carey Early Childhood Education)
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17. Teacher, Forest Schools Trainer and Practitioner
Jo Liversidge
Teacher, Forest Schools Trainer and Practitioner