Skip to main content

Love Outdoor Play

As a Mountain Leader, general outdoor nut and father, I think that playing and exploring outside spaces is an important part of learning and life.  My son (aged 1) and myself (aged 32) spent an hour yesterday exploring the communal gardens that surround our flat.  In fact, he took me for an adventure as I didn’t sway his decision making in any way.

 

This resulted in finding and watching a squirrel eat some nuts, the crossing of the gorge of doom and battling with the living tree of madness (it was windy!).

We at The Geography Collective support playing outside and will be launching a new campaign in September. This is our manifesto:

“Having the freedom to play outdoors improves the well-being of children and their communities.

Together, we are building a visible community to support reasonably safe exploration, adventure and play.

Wherever you see a Love Outdoor Play sticker, you’ll find people who welcome play and are looking out for young people.”

Find out more by reading this over at The Geography Collective Blog. Will there be a Play Patch near you?

Labels:

Comments

  1. Juliet Robertson26 August 2010 at 21:57

    Hi David

    I think this is a really positive campaign by the Geography Collective that's important for children of all ages.

    I think it was Tim Gill who made a wonderful thought provoking comment about children being outdoors...

    "children are disappearing from the outdoors at a rate that would make them top of any conservationist’s list of endangered species if they were any other member of the animal kingdom"

    ReplyDelete
  2. David Rogers27 August 2010 at 11:23

    Hi Juliet,

    Thank you for your comment - it looks like we can count on your support?

    I also love that quote and may use it in a future post.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

High Impact, Low effort

This month is the start of the #29daysofwriting challenge.  I enjoyed this last year and will be using my Staffrm account to post.  I'll also be reporting here, both to give a little more detail and to keep a log of what I have written. The challenge developed a great sense of community last year, which is why I'm choosing to write on Staffrm. What I would say to those who are new to writing or don't want to run out of ideas is: Write for yourself. Clarify an idea, write something out loud. The process of distilling thoughts into writing is immensely beneficial to your practice. If other read, comment and respond, that's a bonus. Ignore the muppets who know nothing of your context, style or students. Mix it up - I like to read about real stuff from real classrooms and schools and also about other stuff.  If we always write about school, how does that work for workload? If you've nothing nice to say, don't say it. So, the following has been 
5 comments
Read more

What makes a learning experience profound? Personal reflections and possible implications for classroom practice.

I have recently begun a Leadership Pathways journey.  As part of the first core day, we were asked to reflect on a profound learning experience. This got me thinking about how many profound learning experiences I have both been involved in, and how many I have been able to give to others.  Our group came up with a huge long list, but these are my five. Emotional Connected Demanding Reflective Collaborative As always, these are personal thoughts and quite mixed up.  I put them here so that I can look back on them (plus they’d get lost inside my world-cup-free brain) 1. Emotional I can’t think of a time where deep learning hasn’t engaged my emotions.  From being awe inspired to that tingle feeling when a student gets a light bulb moment.  From this-is-the-happiest-day-ever, to I-think-I’m-about-to die.  How often do we engage the emotions of those we teach?  Here, I would argue that having a safe learning environment is not always conducive to profound
4 comments
Read more

Banned Word Board

Today I want to share some simple ideas that I have found to be very effective in the classroom. I can't say that they are my own original ideas, although I have played around with them. The first is the Banned word Board. This is a simple display in the classroom that lists a number of words that are not allowed to be used by pupils in their written or oral answers. The effect has been an increase in the quality of written work, and I have almost made comments such as 'Sir it's simple, the stuff just affects the thing and causes people problems'. Pupils are now more able to use specific language, something that is vital especially at GCSE. I have had to make a few modifications, such as the introduction of 'Heavenly Words' This is an additional display placed on the ceiling. I found this necessary as pupils needed some stimulus in finding replacement words. After advice received after posting the idea on the SLN forum , I have also introduced semi-banned words
Post a Comment
Read more