Transforming Education Outside the Classroom - Children, Schools and Families Committee Contents


2 Learning outside the classroom five years on

6.  The known benefits for pupils of learning outside the classroom are many and varied. They include: improved engagement and attendance; the development of learning and thinking skills; and the strengthening of personal, social and emotional development (e.g. confidence, self-reliance, and management of risk).[6] On that basis, we were not clear why, five years on from the Committee's Report on this topic, schools had not adopted learning outside the classroom more widely and more enthusiastically than appears to have been the case. While all learning outside the classroom can be of value, we were particularly interested in provision that takes pupils beyond their school grounds and immediate locality—school trips and residential visits—which we believe can be especially advantageous.

Pupils' access to learning outside the classroom

7.  A survey of school and local authority respondents, commissioned by the Department and published in 2006, found a general perception that the amount of learning outside the classroom within school grounds had remained the same or even increased over the preceding five years. School trips and visits, however, were not seen to have flourished, especially day or residential visits to natural environments.[7] Our evidence suggested that, in subsequent years, pupils' access to school trips and visits had, at best, remained static. As Andy Simpson, Head of Youth and Education at the RSPB, observed:

The pattern of [schools running school trips] is about the same [as recent years]; it is neither up nor down. ... that masks a disappointment in so far as the initiatives that have been put in place should have had some effect on raising numbers, and I am afraid that I cannot report that having taken place.[8]

8.  A recent survey by the Countryside Alliance showed that, in any year, only around half of six to 15-year-olds go on a trip to the countryside with their school.[9] This has been coupled by a more general decline in the amount of time that children spend outside. Research by Natural England has found that the likelihood of a child visiting any green space at all has halved in a generation.[10] Reference was made by one of our witnesses to children having become "entombed" in their homes.[11] Natural England found that nearly two-thirds of children played at home indoors more than any other place.[12]

9.  Anthony Thomas, Chair of the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom, having reviewed a series of Ofsted reports, found that even in geography, where fieldwork is a requirement, not all pupils are spending time outside the classroom. He also found that only around 10% of pupils experience learning outside the classroom, broadly defined, as part of their science lessons.[13] Declining access to laboratory based practical work in science is a related problem. Science can be taught rigorously through learning outside the classroom. The relative absence of these opportunities, as well as practical work, undermines the whole basis of science as an experimental learning experience, and leaves pupils ill-equipped to study science at university level.[14]

10.  Some schools and groups of pupils still have particularly poor access to learning outside the classroom. These include schools in less affluent areas, pupils with special educational needs, disabled pupils, and pupils from low-income families.[15] There is evidence that some groups of pupils opt out of school trips and visits for cultural and/or financial reasons.[16] School rules on which pupils can participate in school trips and visits can be counter-productive: not allowing poorly behaved pupils to participate in these opportunities may be screening out those very pupils who would benefit most.[17]

Integration of provision with the curriculum

11.  Learning outside the classroom is strongest at the end of Key Stage 2, where school trips and visits are something of a 'rite of passage'. While such provision offers very valuable experiences for these children, timetabling trips at the end of the year limits the educational and learning opportunities that can stem from them. More generally, the extent to which school trips are built upon and exploited within a school varies enormously. Too often learning outside the classroom is an isolated experience, and is neither prepared for nor used when the pupils return to school.[18] There remains no clear picture of progression in terms of learning outside the classroom from early years right the way through into secondary and post-16 provision.[19]


6   Ofsted, Learning outside the classroom: how far should you go?, October 2008. Back

7   O'Donnell, L., Education outside the classroom: an assessment of activity and practice in schools and local authorities, DCSF Research Report 803, November 2006. Back

8   Q 2 Back

9   Q 3 (Robert Gray) Back

10   Q 1; written evidence from Natural England (LOC 04) Back

11   Q 46 (Anthony Thomas) Back

12   Written evidence from Natural England (LOC 04) Back

13   Q 2 (Anthony Thomas) Back

14   Q 27 (Sir Mike Tomlinson) Back

15   Q 29 (Anthony Thomas); Q61 (Dr Patrick Roach). See also, O'Donnell, L., Education outside the classroom: an assessment of activity and practice in schools and local authorities, DCSF Research Report 803, November 2006. Back

16   Q 29 (Anthony Thomas); Q 50 (Dr Mary Bousted) Back

17   Q 29. See also, Ofsted, Learning outside the classroom: how far should you go?, October 2008.  Back

18   Q 16 (Sir Mike Tomlinson); Ofsted, Learning outside the classroom: how far should you go?, October 2008. Back

19   Q 2 (Anthony Thomas) Back


 
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