Curious Minds

Staff at St John's Catholic Primary School were conscious that many of their pupils do not have homes with gardens or easy access to outdoor play spaces. They noticed their pupils were unsure about how to engage with outdoor spaces and that school is often their only opportunity to do this.  The school was also keen to develop pupils' involvement in decision making processes and increase their feeling of ownership of the school, in line with the aspirations of the School Development Plan.

Staff decided they would like to consult young people creatively on developing an outdoor space in the school grounds. Using design and video, the young people investigated the outdoor spaces available and worked with their findings to explore and plan how they would like the space to be developed. Pupils developed skills in interviewing techniques as they consulted with peers, practitioners, staff and parents.

The resulting designs offered opportunities for learning across the whole curriculum and include a series of wireless outdoor cameras to facilitate the observation of nature and wildlife within the environment.

All year groups had the opportunity to participate in the building of the designs. Teachers had the opportunity to see how their pupils responded differently to working with different practitioners and noticed how pupils behaved differently outside the classroom. They noticed that children communicated much more freely when they were also engaged with practical tasks.

Once the spaces were completed, parents and family members were invited to an opening event where pupils acted as tour guides of their new outdoor classrooms.

• The free flow between spaces has created more freedom for pupils and teachers to move, improving classroom layout and classroom management and creating more opportunities for teachers to create kinesthetic learning opportunities.
• Pupils reported that the project made school much more interesting and that they were more likely to want to attend. Pupils themselves have observed that teachers are now using a completely different approach to managing behaviour outside the classroom.
• Pupil voice across the school has been strengthened by pupils acquiring new skills in questioning and interviewing, and by teachers reporting the positive impact of engaging pupils in a consultative approach.

St John's are now planning a project to support teachers in developing creative approaches to using their new outdoor classrooms.