Outdoor learning is an important part of teaching across the curriculum at Penn Wood School and teaching staff ensure that they take full advantage of the outdoor areas to enhance learning. These opportunities provide a rich diet of learning, motivate children and make memorable experiences.
There are many opportunities for Maths to take place outside. For example, Year One have spent some lessons exploring time and language related to time (quicker, slower, longest etc.); they did physical activities such as races etc. so that they could experience these words being used in real life contexts, leading to a greater understanding of what the words mean.
Other year groups have used the outdoors to show division by grouping using hoops and cones, or by measuring or collecting data to be used in Maths lessons.
Using the sun to explain light and the formation of shadows has been extremely successful for some children; the natural sunlight enabled the children to better understand better how the sun moves throughout the day to create shadows in different directions.
Bird Watching
All year groups have taken part in the Big Schools’ Birdwatch, helping to educate children about the importance of our birds’ conservation. As a result of this, many year groups went on to make bird feeders as they learned about the importance of feeding birds appropriately during the winter months. In many year groups, the data collection was then used meaningfully in Maths lessons so that children could easily see the link between gathering information and applying it usefully.
Here are just a few photographs of children across the school enjoying learning in the outside environment: