St Joseph's Catholic Primary School
Outdoor Learning
At St Joseph’s, we are committed to developing wonderful young people, driven by the virtues that we teach and live by. With Christ at the centre of all we do, we will offer a school that allows children to succeed, develop friendships and come to know God and themselves. We believe that school should be a safe, exciting place - the best days of your life!
Our Mission
“Believing in God, ourselves and others”
Intent
At St Joseph's Catholic Primary School we have a strong ethos for outdoor learning and believe that it can be used in many cross curricular areas to strengthen and deepen pupils understanding and knowledge and create real life experiences for pupils. Through outdoor learning pupils will become confident, resilient and determined learners. The children are exposed to natural environments enabling them to gain understanding and respect for the natural world and all that lives within it.
Long Term Plan
Implementation
The whole of St Joseph's Catholic Primary School is very committed to outdoor learning therefore every class in the school has at least one designated outdoor learning session per week as well as outdoor learning being incorporated, as much as possible, into our everyday lessons. Outdoor learning is planned to enrich and enhance the children’s in-school learning experiences. This gives every pupil in the school the opportunity to enjoy and learn from our wonderful natural world on a regular basis. Children have the opportunities to learn specific outdoor skills. For example, using flint and steel to light fires to teach them about fire safety; respect for the environment, themselves and others; working within safe boundaries which they learn to recognise and manage themselves. As well as these regular experiences of the outdoor world, the school conducts special outdoor learning days allowing the children to collaborate and work with different children from different age groups in the outdoor environment. As a school, we send our Year 4 pupils to Halton Gill Bunk barn in association with the Country Trust Educational Charity - here they embrace their local surroundings and apply the skills taught. This gives the children a rich learning and life experience and an insight into some of our local history. Outdoor learning takes place on our school grounds.
Impact
By the end of KS2 all children will have enjoyed hands on experiences learning outdoors which will add to their understanding and learning of a wide variety of curriculum areas. They will have developed imagination and creativity through exploration of the outdoors and will have developed resilience through challenging activities and working in all weathers. They also will have developed co-operation skills through team work. Pupils will have a good understanding of nature, the world around us, growing plants and vegetables and will have contributed to the development of our school grounds and looking after the world around us
Learning in Action