Over the last number of years we have been working to develop the way in which the curriculum can be delivered outdoors in St Clare’s Abbey. We have been dedicated to improving our outdoor provision and through working with early years advisor Clare Devlin and carrying out our own reading and research, we have reflected on and evaluated the children’s outdoor learning experiences. During a visit to our school in March 2020, Jan White, a leading thinker and writer on outdoor play, suggested we look at areas which were unused in our outdoor space. Soon after this suggestion was made, we noticed the potential of an unused section of grass near our Foundation Stage playground. It became clear to us that this space could be developed into a large scale Sand area which would be the perfect environment to facilitate meaningful, immersive play based learning experiences for our children. In a recent publication from ETI “Delivering the Curriculum Outdoors” November 2021, the education inspectorate discuss how in an outdoor learning environment when equipment is too large and fixed it “obscures the view of the play area, takes up too much of the available space, or has limited flexibility to ensure opportunities for progressing the children’s skills across the year”. In the early stages of planning, this was at the forefront of our minds. We were inspired by Jan White’s writing, in particular “Playing and Learning Outdoors” where she recommends that children have regular opportunities to engage in play with natural materials, sand, mud, stones. We researched the best sand that could be used, chose the stones and boulders with great care and carried out numerous risk assessments to help with our planning. Fortunately, we are so lucky to have two wonderful caretakers Mr Cormac Murphy and Mr Eddie Heaney who worked diligently to build this area from scratch. I invite you to take a look through the photographs of the process to gain insight into the sheer dedication and work the two men put into this area, this project simply could not have been achieved without them.
At St Clare’s Abbey, we fully embrace opportunities to deliver the curriculum outdoors, and are very keen to avoid simply replicating the indoor classroom in a different setting. Being situated in the busy city of Newry, we were keen to create a play area where the children could become totally immersed in natural resources, engage with their peers, investigate and problem solve in a very free and spacious way. The learning which has unfolded in this area has been so wonderful to witness and we were delighted to realise that every area of the curriculum is facilitated in this area;
Language and Literacy; the children develop language with their peers as they make discoveries, share resources and work together. The children are able to talk about what they are doing and are excited to do so. Literacy lessons are enhanced by real life experiences in the Quarry and often writing will be inspired by discoveries e.g. writing non-fiction book about volcanos.
Mathematics and Numeracy: the opportunities here are endless! The children explore concepts associated with capacity, weight, length and so much more in “real life” context.
Physical Development: Navigating a change in terrain, making pathways in the sand, carrying boulders/ stones and digging are some examples of how the children develop in this way through play based learning in the Sand/ Quarry.
The Arts: The children engage in lots of role play as they discover dinosaur bones, are pirates on a desert island or are intrepid explorers finding new land. These are just some examples totally led by the children to date. They develop their creativity as they create temporary art with the natural materials, add designs and features to their structures and make marks in the sand.
The World Around Us: The children are constantly engaged in scientific enquiry in the Quarry. There are constant investigations occurring throughout the play based learning sessions “how can we make a tunnel? Why is the texture of the sand different in the rain? How does the capacity of a container impact how much we can carry”.
Personal Development and Mutual Understanding: It is through meaningful play in the Quarry that children have opportunities to work together, self-manage their resources, consider how their actions impact others, share resources, work with a focus, take pride in their work and develop relationships with peers/ adults.
