Opening up outdoor learning: taking a closer look

7 min read:

Early childhood settings have seen a move towards antiracist practices, including an awareness of unconscious bias, racism, and cultural appropriation. While much is being done to combat these issues, awareness has not spread outside of our buildings. How can we extend our antiracism practice and policy to include outdoor play and education?

In this article, I will refer to Black and minority ethnic groups as people of the global majority. As a collective term, it speaks to and encourages people who are racialised as ethnic minorities to see themselves as belonging to the global majority, making up 80% of the world’s population. This includes those that are Black, Brown, Asian, dual heritage, or indigenous.

For decades, outdoor learning has been growing in popularity. Today, there are thousands of schools and early childhood settings that run outdoor programmes for children, through internal staff led initiatives or through external providers like Forest Schools. Learning outside can improve communication skills, confidence, and social development. It also increases physical activity and cooperative play in children. In indoor spaces, these benefits create calmer, happier children, often with improved learning outcomes.

In the UK, outdoor play opportunities are on the rise, but research indicates that global majority communities are vastly underrepresented in outdoor leisure activities and spaces. A variety of intersecting socioeconomic, racial, and cultural factors contribute to this situation. With the ongoing global pandemic and the memory of intermittent lockdowns still fresh in the minds of children and adults alike, it has been the most disadvantaged families who have had the least access to outside space.

In England and Wales, around 14% of the population hails from Black, Asian, and minority ethnic backgrounds, whereas in Scotland the figure is 4%. Under 16s have a higher percentage, which is steadily rising. London is the most ethnically diverse city, and we know that most people coming from global majority backgrounds live in urban areas. Shockingly, just 1.9 percent of Black people and 2.6 percent of Asian people live in rural areas.

A diversity review commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) highlighted several key factors in further understanding lower levels of participation in outdoor activities in global majority communities in the UK. A key finding was that although the people interviewed valued the natural environment, they often felt negative about the social environment; they expected to feel excluded and alienated in what was often perceived to be an exclusively white English place. There was a feeling of conspicuousness, concern over negative attitudes, and an inability to be at ease and to behave like one’s true self.

“Many people grow up in cities where they experience racism on a daily basis so it feels uncomfortable for them to head out into the countyside – the last bastions of whiteness – where it’s even less diverse.”

Rhiane Fatinikum, founder of Black Girls Hike.

When we look at the lack of outdoor access opportunities for some children and families, we see that there are intersectional issues involving race, class, gender and many other factors. The term Intersectionality was coined in 1989 by professor Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe how markers of identity overlap and intersect. It recognises that people experience the world differently based on their overlapping identity markers.

Some things to consider when taking an intersectional and inclusive approach to your outdoor provision: Are families aware of the clothing their children will need for an outdoor activity? Do parents worry that their children might get dirty, wet, or cold? We can also consider language barriers in this context – if families have English as an additional language, are we capable of communicating with them to ease their fears?

Parents should be informed about the importance of outdoor play. The goal is to create a relationship that feels open and safe. It is necessary to communicate the appropriate types of clothing required for outdoor sessions. Caregivers need to know the difference between fashion garments marketed as water-resistant and proper waterproof items. They should also be taught about the use of warm layers in cold weather, and the importance of sun protection for all ethnicities and skin tones. Where necessary, you should offer financial assistance for the purchase of outdoor wear or keep a range of spare weather-proof clothing in your setting to be used as needed. We should do our best to ensure that all children can stay warm, dry, and protected when outdoors, which allows for more positive experiences.

When designing our outdoor provision, we should consider the resources we use and how they reflect our priorities, such as the books we choose to read and the songs we sing. Stories are important in many cultures across the world, and an outdoor setting is the perfect place to share stories from various cultures and to encourage children to share their own stories. Think about serving a variety of foods from different cultures if you make and serve food outdoors. It is even more important if you live in a less culturally diverse area to be an inclusive, anti-racist educator and to provide a wide range of experiences for the children in your care.

“We live in a culture where many of the easiest books and resources to access do not showcase and celebrate diversity. As educators we may have to go out of our way to create a collection of diverse books, to source fabrics, foods, musical instruments and everyday items from other cultures, or to ensure we have diverse small world play figures. Even if you don’t have children in your setting from different racial and cultural backgrounds, this is still very important!”

Extract from ‘The tiney guide to becoming an inclusive, anti-racist early educator’ by Laura Henry-Allain MBE & Matt Lloyd-Rose.

Even though some may argue that it doesn’t matter who is leading an outdoor education session if they are competent, there is evidence to suggest culturally relatable role models do make a difference when it comes to children’s sense of what is possible, familiar, and ultimately safe. It is all too often the case that outdoor teaching staff are not representative of the wider community. Global majority children need to see staff that look like them both indoors and outdoors. Have supportive conversations with non-white staff members to address potential anxieties or a lack of comfort that they may have when working outdoors and offer training opportunities if needed.

In the early years sector, the expansion of outdoor play and education could all too easily lead to a focus on numbers of children served rather than on quality of provision, with equity often suffering as a result. Whilst it is positive to get more children outdoors on a regular basis, we must be careful to prioritise the needs of our most vulnerable and excluded communities. These communities have suffered the most from the COVID-19 pandemic and have historically been denied the physical and emotional benefits of safe outdoor spaces. How would it look if our outdoor programs were designed to benefit these communities first, with the wider society also gaining from these diverse and sensitive approaches? We must ensure that staff training includes time to increase understanding of the history of racism in our field, to reflect on unconscious bias, build awareness of microaggressions and strategies to confront them, and to learn to focus on teaching and learning about cultural relevance and understanding.

Some questions to ask yourself:

• Are the outdoor practitioners in our setting culturally diverse? If not, what can we do to change this?
• Does my setting’s antiracism and inclusion policy extend to and consider outdoor learning and play? If not, what can we do to make improvements?
• Having learned about some of the barriers to participation for Black and other global majority communities in outdoor activities, what can our setting do to create more positive opportunities for children and families?