At St Bede’s, we believe that outdoor play and learning is essential to children’s health, development and well-being. Our outdoor learning complements indoor learning and is equally important. Outdoor learning encompasses all that children do, see, hear or feel in their outdoor space. This includes the naturally occurring cyclical opportunities linked to the seasons, weather and nature.

Outdoor Learning is important because it;

• Supports the development of healthy and active lifestyles
• Offers children opportunities for physical activity, freedom and movement
• Promotes a sense of confidence and well-being
• Provides opportunities for developing harmonious relationships with others, through negotiation, taking turns and cooperation
• Supports those children who learn best through activity or movement
• Provides safe and supervised opportunities for children to experience new challenges, assess risk and develop the skills to manage difficult situations
• Supports children’s developing creativity and problem-solving skills
• Provides rich opportunities for imagination, inventiveness and resourcefulness
• Gives children contact with the natural world and offers them unique experiences, such as direct contact with the weather and seasons.

All children will be given the opportunity to play outside throughout the day whatever the weather.

It is important that you dress your child for nursery appropriately: warm clothes and a waterproof coat when it’s cold and wet; sun hat and sunscreen when it’s sunny. Please make sure they have a change of clothes in nursery (See our Kit List).

Children get wet, muddy and messy when they play outside. We provide protective clothing for them to wear, including wellington boots, although you can provide these things if you wish.

We teach children how to minimise how messy they get and they do get better at this as they get older, but its part of their learning and development – you can’t expect them not to get messed up playing in mud.

We will not compromise on allowing children to play outdoors as we believe it to be an essential component of young children’s learning and development. Children must be allowed to experience the world around them in a full, messy, messy environment if they are to make useful meaning of it.