Here at The Outdoors School, we work with children and young people with a range of additional needs. Many of our learners have a background of trauma and have come to us because they have struggled in previous educational settings. We work on four woodland sites in Devon, completely outdoors all year round and use an experiential, constructivist model of education which uses project-based learning as the mechanism of delivery.
We have designed our own curriculum which has three phases:
- Phase 1 – this deals with trauma led learning and aims to help our learners to reengage with learning
- Phase 2 – aligns more with the national curriculum but outdoors
- Phase 3 – accreditation year (similar to KS4)
In this post, we are going to focus on our Phase 1 curriculum as this is absolutely crucial to ensure a successful learning journey for the young people we work with. A learner is not going to be open to accessing education until they feel safe and supported and our priority is to give them these foundations to promote their wellbeing and regulation skills before we move onto the second phase of our curriculum.
A key point to make is that our phase 1 curriculum is not trackable or quantitative, our staff make qualitative judgements to observe if a learner has made an improvement in the different areas of the curriculum. Our constructivist model means that we only compare a learner to themselves, not to their peers or guidance on age-related milestones. This is important as it enables our learners to take charge of their own learning journey and helps with their development of self-awareness as they can identify progress that they have made and record it in their learning journals.
The headings of our Phase 1 curriculum have parallels with the EYFS but can be applied to a variety of ages and can have the national curriculum embedded into them. They are:
- Knowing myself
- Knowing others
- Being understood
- Creativity
- Explore and discover
- Life skills
- Practical skills
- The world around me
- Keeping safe and well
All of these headings are learner friendly, and we encourage our learners to take charge of their own learning journeys and identify how different activities can fit into these headings. For example, working on the allotment area or assisting our estates team with tree planting feeds into ‘the world around me’ and being tasked to create their own safe space in the woods can contribute to ‘creativity’ (as they design a space), ‘knowing myself’ (as they identify what space would feel safe for them), ‘knowing others’ (as they might collaborate with other learners or share resources and tools) and ‘practical skills’ (as they might use tools to build their space). This trauma-led style of facilitation allows our learners to not feel like they’re in a school and helps them to take autonomy over their education and feel safe to explore the headings in their own time and learning style.
Although these headings could work in an indoor setting as well, we would argue that adding the outdoor component adds another level of depth and value to this first phase of learning. Being outside all year round encourages our learners to develop resilience as they experience all sorts of different weather, it bonds them with their peers as they experience things that you wouldn’t see inside a classroom, it gives them a sense of perspective as they see the seasons change around them, it prevents their options from being limited as the whole world is open to them and how they choose to interpret it. Being outdoors is a great equaliser, nature and the weather does not discriminate, it treats everyone the same – this promotes equality which is really important for our learners who have often experienced inequality in their lives first hand.
By working through these headings and making progress in each area, our learners gain the foundations they need to feel emotionally safe enough to then be able to move to the next phase of the curriculum. Once these essential needs are met, they will feel able to explore their interests and passions, to step outside of their comfort zone, to challenge themselves, and to continue on their learning journey, leading the way, with our staff walking alongside them to facilitate, support, and encourage as needed.
Author: Hannah Durdin, Content Officer at The Outdoors Group
