In the spotlight

HORIZONS TALKS TO CHRISTIAN KITLEY, HEAD OF OUTDOOR LEARNING AT MANOR LODGE SCHOOL

Tell us a little about your background and how you became Head of Outdoor Learning at a primary school

As a child I loved to be outdoors, playing and exploring in my garden or in the woods. This love of the outdoors is something that I carried through my youth and now into my professional life as well. I suppose my Outdoor Learning journey really began aged 6 when I joined my local beaver scout group; 25 years later and I still haven’t left! My experience as a scout leader was key in my decision to train as a primary school teacher in 2010.

Throughout my teaching career, I have always taken every opportunity to move learning outdoors in whatever subject I was teaching, sharing the benefits of Outdoor Learning with my class and my colleagues. I was lucky enough in my previous school to be able to set up an Outdoor Learning programme and run an outdoor activities club which proved to be very popular with the children and their families. As we were an all-through school, I was also able to run the DofE award which, although certainly challenging during the pandemic, was a wonderful opportunity to expand participation in the school as well as to share my skills and passion.

In 2020, with the country in lockdown, I started the dissertation for my MA in Education. I was looking at how to increase participation in Outdoor Learning among traditionally under-represented groups, particularly girls, in more adventurous activities – which was a really fascinating topic and one that I am very passionate about. As well as broadening my views on Outdoor Learning, being completely immersed in the subject made me realise that this area is where my passion lies and where I can see myself working permanently. A few months after finishing my dissertation, I saw my current job advertised on the IOL website and decided to take the plunge to teach Outdoor Learning full time, and I’m not looking back!

What is your current role?

My current position is Head of Outdoor Learning at Manor Lodge School. I am very lucky to have a passionate and dedicated team in the department, including a Forest School leader and an Outdoor Learning teaching assistant. All the children, from Nursery up to Year 6, have an hour of Outdoor Learning lessons per week, all year round. In these lessons we follow a really broad curriculum including bushcraft skills, cooking, gardening, traditional crafts, navigating, art and nature to name a few areas. We combine this with after-school clubs and activities so the children have a lot of time enjoying the outdoors!

Our school prides itself on ‘allowing every child to have a childhood’ and Outdoor Learning is key to this approach, giving the children adventures in their learning every day. We have an incredibly supportive Headteacher who fully embraces and promotes our Outdoor Learning provision as a real selling point of the school. I am a big believer in culture being the prime factor in a school’s achievements, especially after hearing Steve Head (see ‘Focus on the positives’ on page 12 for further details) speak a few years ago, and Manor Lodge really embodies this principle with its Outdoor Learning.

The school environment is set up with Outdoor Learning and playing spaces at its heart – teachers are encouraged and supported to take their lessons outdoors as much as possible; adults and children eat lunch together outdoors for much of the year and all our staff meetings are held outside in all but the most extreme weather. All of this (as well as the compulsory welly boots on the uniform list!) gives the feeling and reassurance that the outdoors is an integral part of the school experience here and certainly not a passing phase.

Having everyone eating together is a really nice way to build relationships between staff and pupils in a different setting from the usual classroom environment. This just adds some fun to the mix and if we are honest, everyone loves a picnic! As a school, staff are encouraged to think about how their lessons can be taken outdoors and part of my role is to support them in achieving this alongside fostering the outdoor culture throughout the school.

What’s the best thing about your work? What most inspires you?

The freedom I have to create an exciting and varied curriculum is definitely one of the most exciting things about my work. That I am able to adapt my lessons completely to what might be happening at the time, whether that be an event in the world, changing weather or even the appearance of an interesting bird or fungus!

I love being able to share my passion for the outdoors with so many children every week, seeing them discover something new or gain confidence using tools. It sounds like a cliche, but the children really are the biggest source of inspiration for my lessons and their interests or questions often make it onto the lesson plans for the next week or term.

Recently, for example, a child was asking about thatched roofs after seeing one on holiday, and as I am always keen to promote traditional crafts, we are now going to do some low-level thatching next term! I also get a lot of inspiration from my team at school as well as some amazing ideas from various Outdoor practitioners on Twitter. I am really lucky to have amazing grounds to work in which gives me so much scope to plan activities in a variety of environments: I frequently move from forest to pond to Japanese garden in a day, which I certainly don’t take for granted. The variety of spaces within the school really is fundamental to what I can offer the children.

Are you facing any challenges at the moment?

The weather is often a challenge as we are right up on a fairly exposed hill so we get pretty windswept at times! The children take it all in their stride though, so apart from in extreme weather, I always aim to get outdoors with them.

Keeping them all motivated in wind and rain can be challenging, but I try to make those days’ activities extra fun to compensate for the weather. I really try to keep the curriculum fresh, responding to what is happening around us, which often means changing plans at short notice and from year to year. The pressure I put on myself to provide engaging and evolving lessons I think is a challenge that most practitioners in Outdoor learning face!

Do you see any opportunities emerging?

We are looking to the future now and hoping to expand our provision to other schools in the area by hosting Outdoor Learning sessions for them in our grounds, hopefully giving the opportunity to share our wonderful outdoor spaces. We will also be hosting an Outdoor Learning conference soon for teachers, practitioners and instructors to collaborate and be inspired by the amazing work happening in settings around the country.

We are really keen to build a community feel around our school so we are inviting parents into school to experience some of the Outdoor Learning sessions for themselves! This is a really exciting project and I am really looking forward to strengthening the link between parents and the school.

This term we have also begun an allotment building project with the help of the parents within school. When complete, the allotments will offer an incredible learning space for the children to grow and harvest their own food — learning as they go. Parents will also be encouraged to share in the growing journey and enable the grounds to be put to good use by our community throughout the weekends and holidays.

Thinking about the big picture of Outdoor Learning are there any changes which you’d like to see happen?

Following on from the pandemic, Outdoor Learning has come to the fore as a solution to social distancing in classrooms as well as a tool to promote wellbeing and positive mental health in children. Whilst it is amazing that more schools are using their outdoor spaces, I think it is really important that we plan for the long-term prospects of Outdoor Learning and ensure that it doesn’t become a bit of a ‘phase’ that gets quickly overlooked as we move away from COVID-19.

Research consistently shows the benefits to children and adults of spending time in the outdoors and connecting with nature. Unfortunately the perceptions of Outdoor Learning in schools do not always match up with the potential benefits. This is particularly true the further into education a child gets. Whilst in Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and Key Stage 1 (KS1) there is a multitude of settings offering forest school lessons, this provision seems to disappear in the move up to KS2, which I think is a great shame and missed opportunity.

Often children don’t get to engage again in regular school-based Outdoor Learning until well into secondary school with the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award or Cadets. I believe there needs to be a greater push for regular Outdoor Learning opportunities throughout a child’s time at school and not just restricted to the younger age groups.

The other key change I would like to see is greater diversity within the Outdoor Learning community, including schools. As a white male, I am aware that I am hugely overrepresented and this is something that needs to change. Recently, groups such as Black Girls Hike and Muslim Hikers have brought this issue to a wider

audience and have shown how much more we need to do to encourage a more diverse and inclusive workforce and participant base within the sector.

I truly believe that schools can and need to lead the way in building a more diverse Outdoor community. My Masters research showed (admittedly on a small scale!) how important childhood experiences were in keeping children engaged with Outdoor Learning as they move into adulthood. Schools and other youth organisations need to blaze the trail here.

If you could only share one thing with readers about the future of Outdoor Learning what would you share?

Outdoor Learning is vitally important in today’s schools. From issues as broad as mental and physical health, to living sustainably, Outdoor Learning gives children the skills, knowledge and ideas to make a difference in our world whilst having incredible fun! Let’s make sure that this is reflected in our schools and not allowed to pass as ‘just another phase’ n

BE IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Would you like to be in the spotlight?

Email horizonseditor@ outdoor-learning.org with a little bit of information about yourself. We’ll then send you a few questions to answer.