We now move to our next item, which is the short debate. I therefore call Vikki Howells to speak on the topic that she has chosen on unlocking children’s natural potential and the role of outdoor education in the learning process. If Members who are leaving the Chamber—. The Assembly is still in session.

Os caf ofyn i Aelodau’r Cynulliad os ydynt yn gadael i wneud hynny’n dawel ac yn barchus. A gofynnaf i Vikki Howells gyflwyno ei dadl.

Diolch, Lywydd. Many colleagues here in this Chamber will be aware that, until March of this year, I was a full-time practising teacher. I certainly enjoyed my 16 years in the classroom, but my best memories of the job are the times spent outside of the classroom. By this, I’m not referring to the supposedly long holidays teachers receive, which, I can confirm, incidentally, are filled with marking, planning and numerous other roles, but to the times I spent with my classes engaging in learning opportunities outside of the confines of four walls. This will be the focus of my short debate today.

I would like to thank the Members’ Research Service and Marc Withers of Ignite Up for their help in suggesting resources I could draw on for my contribution. I’m also glad to offer Rhianon Passmore and Julie Morgan a minute each of my speaking time.

It has long been recognised that time spent outside the classroom can be highly beneficial to pupils’ learning. From my own experiences of teaching history and geography in a secondary school, I always found there was something truly magical about learning that took place outside of the classroom, whether that was a hands-on investigation of a castle, a competitive, team-based geocaching lesson, a field trip to a river where pupils would actually get in the water and measure the width, depth and water flow, or even a simple half-hour out in the school grounds investigating microclimates by measuring wind speed, temperature and so on.

Joyce Watson took the Chair.

Natural Resources Wales, in their evidence to the Children, Young People and Education Committee inquiry into their priorities for this Assembly term, succinctly list the benefits to a young person’s education from this contact with the great outdoors. I won’t repeat the list, but I do want to mention some examples that reinforce my own understanding of the benefits that this type of learning brings. Outdoor education creates memorable experiences, develops leadership, communication, confidence and teamwork through experiential learning. It broadens horizons of students, empowers those who may do better in less formal learning environments and enables the development and embedding of a range of vital learning and practical skills.

It also promotes health and well-being, both in terms of physical activity and in terms of the benefits to mental health that these experiences can garner. When we look at areas such as my own constituency, Cynon Valley, with high levels of obesity, mental health issues and smoking, we see the benefits that the promotion of greater contact with the outdoors could bring. Indeed, these health benefits may operate on an even more fundamental basis. US academics Drs Finlay and Arrietta recently wrote in the ‘Wall Street Journal’ about the generation of children shielded from the microbial exposure that is essential for the development of a healthy immune system. If we prevent our children playing and learning outdoors, their education and health may suffer.

This can also generate disconnection from nature, with serious consequences for our approach to the natural world around us. Eleven to 15-year-olds spend half of their waking lives in front of some screen or other, impacting on their ability to connect with the natural world. In addition, recent studies have shown that three quarters of children in the UK spend less time outdoors than prison inmates. Naturalist Stephen Moss has talked about a ‘nature-deficit disorder’. Research from the RSPB showed that just 13 per cent of Welsh children considered themselves to have a close connection to the natural world. That’s lower than Scotland, Northern Ireland, or, indeed, London. This statistic is perhaps even more shocking when we consider the unique proximity that all of Wales’s urban areas have to our rural landscape.

Outdoor learning promotes environmental understanding and responsibility, and is key to creating citizens who are committed to principles of sustainability, and those are the citizens that we need in the twenty-first century world if we are to meet the environmental challenges that lie before us. Teachers and formal schooling have an important role to play in achieving this, and school inspectorates in England and Northern Ireland have challenged schools to ensure pupils can access out-of-class learning both for the benefits to learners and for the environmental sensitivity it fosters.

But we must do more to change habits, opportunities and lifestyles than just hope that schools can fill the gaps by adding outdoor learning to the occasional lesson. I believe we can draw important lessons from outstanding practice in other countries. Some of these countries have been promoting outdoor education in a consistent way for a lot longer. For example, the Swedish Outdoor Association set up Skogsmulle schools that provided five to six-year-olds with outdoor education on the weekends. By the time of their half-century in 2007, one in five Swedish children—that’s some 2 million children—had, in fact, attended a Skogsmulle school. Children in Sweden spend part of every school day outdoors, regardless of the weather, and the Skogsmulle approach led to the foundation of in-rain-or-shine preschools, where the institution is based entirely on the concept of outdoors education. Researchers found that children who attended these schools can concentrate twice as well as their peers and have better motor skills and more advanced well-being.

The ethos and model of Skogsmulle spread much further afield to other European countries, but also to South Korea and Lebanon. Indeed, there are over 2,000 Skogsmulle teachers in Japan alone. I firmly believe that the Welsh Government has worked to rectify this and more fundamentally integrate outdoor learning into the way we teach our children. Active, experiential learning is key to our groundbreaking foundation phase and underpins several of the phase’s statutory areas of learning. Many schools in Wales now benefit from outdoor classroom areas as a result of the Welsh Government’s drive. These can be used to provide outdoor activities that include first-hand experience of solving real-life problems and learning about conservation and sustainability.

This approach is already bearing fruit as the foundation phase is leading to reductions in the attainment gap between pupils eligible for free school meals and those who are not, suggesting some of the vitally important ways in which outdoor education can help unlock our children’s potential. Similarly, Professor Donaldson has spoken of the immense value that outdoor education can play in the learning process. I would suggest that we will not succeed in achieving the four purposes he sets out for the curriculum in Wales without the development of significant opportunities for worthwhile outdoor activities and learning.

I would also suggest that there are possibilities to do something creative to achieve this transformation, in the south Wales Valleys in particular. I mentioned the health challenges earlier. People who are not from the Valleys may well have an inaccurate perception of grim, post-industrial landscapes. But, in reality, the renaissance of the natural environment throughout the area provides countless opportunities, as recognised, for example, by a recent NRW paper exploring opportunities for managing the Rhondda’s natural resources.

Dare Valley Country Park, one of the jewels in the crown of Cynon Valley, is home to the Ladybird nature-based parent and toddler group that has imbibed from the Scandinavian model and also learned from positive outcomes of similar groups in Scotland. This initiative has further led to local employment and economic opportunities within my constituency. The venture has been so successful that the team behind it are now on course to open Wales’s first nature-based kindergarten for children aged two to five at the Dare Valley Country Park next spring. Ninety per cent of classes will be in the outdoors, and the organisers believe that children who attend will be healthier, have improved well-being, develop better skills and possess a keener understanding of the natural world. The work being done at Dare Valley Country Park has gained international attention. So much so that the venue has now been chosen to provide the setting for the 2017 international Skogsmulle symposia, bringing together outdoor educators from around the globe.

I’m immensely proud that an education provider within my own constituency is leading the way with regard to the provision of outdoor education in Wales. There is no doubt about the wide array of benefits that outdoor education brings. It improves concentration, assists with cognitive learning, enhances social skills, allows children to connect with the beautiful natural surroundings we have on offer and, most importantly, it helps unlock our children’s potential. Thank you.

I call on Julie Morgan to make her contribution.

Thank you very much, acting Presiding Officer. I’d like to congratulate Vikki Howells on choosing such a vitally important subject for this debate. I just wanted to refer to a visit I made to Denmark some years ago, with a delegation, looking at education provision. I visited a preschool, such as she referred to in Sweden, I think, for two and three-year-olds. The two and three-year-olds were playing outside in the snow. It was bitterly cold. They were crawling on a great tree that had fallen over, it was an old, sort of, rotten tree, and they were scrambling all over it and they had bright red jumpsuits that covered them all over and they were having an absolutely wonderful time. I really felt, when I saw those children, that probably for the same aged children at home we’d probably have them in over-heated rooms, carefully cosseted, at that time.

So, that’s why I think it’s so good—and I’m glad that Vikki Howells has mentioned this—that we are making such progress in the foundation phase, making sure that there are outdoor classrooms and that there are opportunities for children to connect with nature at a very, very early age. And I also want to applaud the forest school movement and the fact that children have all the great excitement at being able to light fires and to be out in natural surroundings, and I hope that this is something that Wales will be able to take further and that the education Cabinet Secretary will be able to even further extend the opportunities for outdoor activities. So, thank you very much.

I now call on Rhianon Passmore to make her contribution.

Thank you—I won’t say ‘Llywydd’—Deputy Presiding—?

Acting.

Acting—okay, thank you. Firstly, I’d also like to thank you, Vikki. As a former teacher, I’m grateful to the Member for Cynon Valley for raising this important issue, and I fully support the Welsh Government’s commitment to promoting outdoor education throughout the foundation phase. In my constituency, it’s amazing facilities such as the Cwmcarn Forest Drive and Ynys Hywel Outdoor Activity Centre that enable school groups to explore the natural environment around their schools and homes, and we’re very fortunate in south-east Wales to have access to the fantastic woodland areas of the Valleys, in which children and young people can learn about nature and encounter wildlife.

Outdoor education is essential in ensuring that children and young people from all backgrounds, as Vikki has said, can benefit physically and emotionally from being outdoors, and it is vital that we continue to recognise the role of outdoor education in aiding children’s ability, as has been said in terms of forest schools, to focus and develop inside the classroom. It is essential that, with the innovative foundation phase that we’ve actually led on, and now the increased PDG, and Donaldson access has been referenced, we have a wider push to access experiential learning, as has been mentioned. This is an important plank, in my view, of Welsh Labour Government’s enriched curriculum, and I thank Vikki Howells again for raising this as a topic, and I know it’s a matter that Wales will continue to champion. Thank you.

Thank you. I’d now like to call on the Cabinet Secretary for Education to reply to the debate—Kirsty Williams.

Thank you very much, acting Presiding Officer. Could I begin by thanking Vikki, Julie and Rhianon for the contribution to this important debate this afternoon? I’m very pleased to have this opportunity to reinforce our commitment to the importance and the unique value of outdoor learning for children and young people the length and breadth of Wales. The evidence, as Vikki has said, is clear: outdoor learning has major benefits in helping children to understand how things work, and using a variety of indoor and outdoor activities helps them to develop different ways to solve problems. That is why the foundation phase for our three to seven-year-olds places such a strong emphasis on experiential learning. Learning by doing is at the heart of our foundation phase approach, and great importance is placed on using the outdoors to extend learning beyond the classroom boundaries.

Professor Donaldson highlighted in ‘Successful Futures’ the importance of learning beyond classroom boundaries for learners of all ages. He makes a clear case that learners need to understand the relevance of what they learn and to be able to make connections with the world beyond the school gates. Schools and nurseries need to encourage children to make sense of the world around them. We know that if children are stimulated and inspired, and enjoy a varied set of experiences, then their learning and their development will be enhanced, and I’m very proud that we have a curriculum with that focus.

Outdoor learning remains an important part of our school and teaches everyday teaching and learning experiences. Activities that I’ve seen recently in schools included mud kitchens, nature trails, forest classrooms, construction sites—they all consolidate children’s learning and allow teachers and parents to support their understanding of the world around them. And Estyn has urged schools in Wales to take greater advantage of the benefits of teaching young children outdoors, most notably in the sciences.

Estyn emphasises that the outdoor learning experience generally improved children’s well-being, it improved their behaviour, their physical development, knowledge and understanding of the world and stated that children under five learn better and develop quicker with outdoor lessons. Only last week, I experienced a teacher teaching grammar to children in the playground as they ran around, identifying certain types of word that had been laid on coloured pieces of paper. They were learning really, really quickly. In fact, they didn’t realise they were learning at all; they were just really enjoying being in school for that lesson. So, it is this ambition that these approaches to experiential and outdoor learning are used throughout the school and in the delivery of the curriculum. Children and young people should have opportunities to learn from expertise and experience from outside of their schools.

Welsh Government published its guidance on outdoor learning, ‘First Steps Outdoors’, and additional guidance, ‘Further Steps Outdoors’, in 2014. I will shortly be publishing and putting in place an action plan that will focus on the consistency of delivery of the foundation phase across Wales, including attitudes and approaches to outdoor learning. One such way in which we can provide outdoor learning experience is through the forest school approach that Julie Morgan referenced, which involves the regular use of a woodland or other outdoor area as a learning resource. There is a history of outdoor nurseries, as we’ve also heard, in other countries such as Sweden, which has led to the forest school movement here in the UK and elsewhere. It is indeed encouraging to see that Wales’s first nature kindergarten will open next year in woods in Rhondda Cynon Taf, and it will cater for up to 30 children aged 2 to 5, spending the majority of their time learning outdoors. This will be, as Vikki said, the UK’s first Skogsmulle-inspired kindergarten. A Swedish early years philosophy based on the benefits of learning outside, it’s already embedded itself, as Vikki said, in countries such as Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany and Japan. It’ll be great to have one here in Wales.

As Julie said, the experience of those children is such a positive thing, and it reminds me of the saying that my grandma used to have: that a little bit of dirt never hurt anyone, and there was no such thing as bad weather, just really poor clothes choices. The benefits of outdoor learning for children are clear. It enhances their physical and motor skills as well as their social and cognitive ones, and improves their general health and physical fitness, something that we cannot ignore in our country. I am committed to promoting the benefits and increased use of outdoor learning, which we know can help ensure that the children and young people of Wales are confident, healthy, and above all, ambitious learners. Thank you.

That brings today’s proceedings to a close.

The meeting ended at 18:17