Pupils at Hyrstmount Junior School in Batley have been taking their lessons outside in a move that has seen the children improve their social skills and develop their knowledge. Read the full article.
Using PE Premium for outdoor learning
After such a long period of lockdown, ensuring that pupils have access to sufficient daily activity can have wider benefits, improving behaviour as well as enhancing academic achievement.
Outdoor learning and food growing are a perfect fit for these outcomes and can be funded with your PE Premium. Taking children outside for their learning has numerous applicable benefits for pupil’s physical health, as well as their mental wellbeing (increasing self-esteem and emotional wellbeing and lowering anxiety and depression), and children who are physically active are happier, more resilient and more trusting of their peers.
The Association for Physical Education (afPE) supports using the PE premium to fund other subjects within the curriculum:
“This funding doesn’t have to be ringfenced for PE lessons. Have you considered how to enhance your children’s learning by thinking outside the box and encouraging other lessons to be active as well?”
Introducing outdoor learning and food growing in your school will help you provide a broader experience and range of activities offered to your pupils. And by working with Grow to School your staff will develop and increase their confidence, knowledge and skills creating additional and sustainable improvements to your current activity offer.
The range of sessions delivered by Grow to School, and the lesson plans provided by our Teach it Outside subscription site, will support you to broaden and strengthen your school’s capacity for outdoor provision.
For more information take a look at the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom
Contact Ama to develop an outdoor project in your school grow@growtoschool.co.uk 07710084388
Growing together through lockdown
During the first lockdown we delivered the Growing together Kirklees and Growing together Bradford projects. Funded and supported by a host of funders partners, we worked with schools, charities, community hubs, mutual aid and faith groups to share growing packs – seeds, plants, instruction & activity sheets with isolated people across West Yorkshire.
The communities absolutely loved the packs. It was a privilege to share something fun and non-essential with people at a time when everything was so serious and worrying. It was inspiring to get a sense of the value to people of seeing things grow and having something to nurture, providing nourishment of a different kind.
The benefits to people’s feelings of worth and wellbeing were abundantly visible to the volunteers who shared the packs. We wanted to share our passion for growing and being outside and feel we have done so with the help and support of an inspiring and community minded host of people. We are very proud to have been able to help in some way.
Feedback from participants:
“I was never sure what to do outside with the children other than run around a bit, but we have all enjoyed doing this”
“I have loved growing the runner beans with Logan and he has watched everyday to see if they have grown.”
In 2021, as spring marches on and the issues around isolation still remain, we are embarking on a second outing of the project across Kirklees. Click the link to keep up to date with the project Growing together Kirklees
Sowing seeds of hope – Growing Together Bradford
Funded by Better Start Bradford innovation project, we joined forces with Horton Community Farm to support families with nursery aged children to get growing at home over lockdown and reap the benefits of growing fresh vegetables, fruit and flowers. Click on the link to read about its success: Sowing seeds of hope in Bradford In 2021 we are continuing with this project and are currently busy planning and preparing to work across three sites in the Better Start Bradford area, as well as at the Horton Community Farm demo site. We hope to welcome parents and children to get involved very soon and look forward to supporting them to grow their own food and inspire a love of the outdoors.
