Over the past 20-30 years, hundreds of studies conducted all over the world have proven beyond doubt what scholars have observed and empirically known for millennia: There are immense benefits to humans’ physical and mental health by being in and engaging with nature.
Nature’s secret wonders for human development and wellbeing
Scientists now understand better how this is due to the many complex and subtle impacts environmental factors such as phytoncides (naturally occurring chemical compounds secreted by plants and trees to protect themselves from ‘threats’ such as insects, bacteria or fungi), negative air irons (found in high concentrations in forests, mountains and along rivers) or even sunlight and natural sounds have on our brains, hormonal balances, immune and nervous systems and many other physiological processes.
And as with everything else related to wellbeing and the learning of behavioural patterns leading to it, the early childhood years are the most crucial.
It is therefore not surprising that since the UK Chief Medical Officers’ Physical Activity Guidelines emphatically encourage active outdoor play and conclude that if children haven’t learned to enjoy physical exercise by 7 years, they are likely to be couch potatoes for life.
“It’s so important that we and our young people are not sedentary for long periods of time and that our children are active in nature and learn to engage with it from a young age” says Jon Cree, a Founding Director of the Forest School Association and internationally recognised leader in nature-based education. Jon has been a friend of Herne Hill School and advisor for many years, conducting staff training and leading model workshops with the children. His most recent book (2021, co-authored with Marina Robb), ‘The Essential Guide to Forest School and Nature Pedagogy‘, is a comprehensive tome of wisdom on outdoor learning.
Children can learn more effectively outdoors
At Herne Hill School, we have witnessed first-hand the research findings which suggest that the multisensory stimulation of the outdoors is essential for healthy neural development and that learning is often more effective when taken outside of the classroom.
Indeed, the more restorative natural environment somehow seems to increase attention span and memory, promote curiosity and build self-esteem and confidence. We concur with plenty of anecdotal evidence from around the UK and emerging longitudinal studies that regular long-term contact with the natural world improves academic attainment through emotional wellbeing, enjoyment of lessons and its resulting engagement with learning and improved social skills.
Having embraced outdoor learning for many years, it felt only natural to recently invest further into enhancing our outdoor environments to allow our children to develop their cross-curricular creative and critical thinking skills even better.
Unique historic and new outdoor spaces
For being in the middle of London, we have historically been very fortunate to have available the vast woodland area at our main site. It has enabled us to hone considerable expertise bringing learning to the outdoors across all areas of the curriculum, using nature as a teaching platform and allowing the children to explore being outside, including eating outdoors with the weekly BBQ in the clement weather seasons.
With the recent opening of our dedicated Kindergarten at 99 Herne Hill, we then had the opportunity to add a second wonderful outdoor environment by carefully transforming the derelict garden into a cloistered, natural sensory space with a purpose-built ‘sand land’ and several nature-centric activity areas.
When this turned out to be visibly even more beneficial to our young children’s development than anticipated, we were motivated further to undertake significant additional enhancements at our main site woodland area. Whilst retaining and actually further highlighting its natural character, we endeavoured to create a continuous landscape featuring distinct exploratory zones which merge seamlessly into one another.
Significantly enhanced natural activity centres in the woodland area
The zones include a Finnish style running track around the woodland to enable a ‘daily dash’ in nature to support mental and physical welfare as well as to improve concentration levels. Prominently located at the entrance of the area, the ‘pebble land’ (a large ‘pit’ fashioned from the careful placement of boulders, logs and sleepers around the periphery, with a pulley system and buckets placed strategically in the centre) allows the children to develop their physical skills, as well as encourage experimentation and understanding in the area of physics.
In the mud kitchen and home zone, located alongside the water pump and trough, messy play reigns supreme. This encourages children’s understanding of the world and provides wonderful opportunities for imaginative play.
The ‘colosseum’ acts as a communal area, with the considered placement of a large circumference of logs around the fire pit providing seating for up to an entire year group of children to gather around for shared outdoor experiences. It’s an amazing relaxing and therapeutic space!
The canopied woodwork area, complete with three woodwork benches, also provides opportunity outside for table top activities for all year groups. And finally, the log trail, inspired by the incredible feature of the same name at Kew Gardens, provides clear benefits to the development of children’s gross motor skills in this area, but there are also great opportunities for them to progress in all other domains, including weighing up risks for themselves.
It is one of my greatest privileges as Headteacher to stroll into our natural outdoor areas and invariably feel the happy buzz and all the extensive, tangible learning that is happening effortlessly, as if through osmosis.