The benefits of outdoor education experiences are obvious to anyone who has ever gone for a hike through a muddy field while wrestling with an Ordnance Survey map, abseiled, spent the night camped in a lakeland forest, climbed a rockface or kayaked down a river.
These are experiences that form young people and stay with them for the long term. We know, not only through academic research but powerfully through our own experiences, the transformational and tangible good that outdoor learning delivers for the lives of children and young people.
Research from the University of Cumbria demonstrates the benefits for young people of widening their horizons, building their confidence and character, and nurturing a love of learning, greater awareness of nature and an intelligent approach to risk. Once a child has overcome their fear to crawl through a dark and cramped cave, wade through a fast river or work with a classmate to build something, other challenges in their normal lives back at home are put into perspective.
Building on the benefits of outdoor education for the rest of the curriculum, the rapport built between teachers and students during a week-long residential where both are immersed – often literally – in the glory of nature means that when life returns to normal the next Monday in the classroom, those students are much more likely to engage, listen and learn. Outdoor education is a wonderful investment with guaranteed returns for the individual, for society and, indeed, for the Exchequer.
The University of Cumbria’s research demonstrates that there is a social return on investment of £4.32 for every pound spent on outdoor education as part of the curriculum. Research funded by DEFRA through Natural England looked at the experience of schools and students who had access to outdoor education opportunities: 95% found that those experiences made lessons more enjoyable, 85% reported a positive impact on student behaviour, 92% reported improved engagement of students with learning and 92% reported increased student health and wellbeing.
The frustrating news is that outdoor education is becoming much more difficult to access. Some 13% of students never visit the natural environment or spend meaningful time outdoors, rising to 18% of children in the most deprived parts of our country. A third of children never, ever have lessons outside. Outdoor education centres are facing difficult times: 30 of them have closed in the last eight years. Learning outside and going on life-changing residentials is, sadly, becoming the preserve of schools from wealthier areas.
The outdoors is the antidote to many of our ills. Time on outdoor residentials pulls us out of our comfort zone. It makes us rely on others and experience the scary wonder of being relied upon by others. It teaches us that we can do things we thought were impossible. It nurtures an ability to solve problems and to rise above the panic that freezes us when crises hit. It builds relationships and the capacity to form friendships, skills that are transferable and, above all, the resilience to help us cope with the stuff that life will chuck at us.
Education and policy of successive Governments has failed to prioritise outdoor education to the extent that it has become for many a nice luxury at best, rather than the essential that it ought to be.
To turn the situation around will take a serious, conscious and deliberate effort, and I want the Government to take this opportunity to make that happen.
My ask is an ambitious one, but surely this is the time to be ambitious for our young people. If the Government want to do something utterly transformational that will improve education and mental health outcomes, tackle obesity and physical poor health, and increase life chances and cohesion in our society, they should support my presentation Bill, which calls for every child to have an entitlement to a week-long residential outdoor education experience at primary, and then again at secondary school.
Schools should be fully funded to provide those experiences. Outdoor education centres should be involved in the design of those programmes, and they should be given the ability to expand capacity. No child should miss out because their parents could not afford it. The value would be immense. It would light the blue touchpaper on a lifelong love of nature, adventure and the outdoors. It would build citizens who can cope and thrive in the modern world. It would mean happier and healthier people, better learners, better workers and a better country.
Outdoor education is not a nice luxury, it is essential for developing happier and healthier people
