Niall Shannon: [00:00:00] Hi there and welcome everyone to today's Nesta talks to. This is our series of events designed to be a conversation with today's most interesting thinkers focused on the big topics that define the future. Today, I'm really excited too, about the Mary Jackson to discuss learning and how to design and create spaces that promote children's development.

Well, before we launch into the conversation as a few things, just to update you on, firstly, please do join the conversation in the comments box and write down the right side of the screen and submit any questions throughout the event. Also for those who need constructions can be accessed via the live stream. Also just introduce myself.

Hello. I'm Niall Shannon on our fairer start mission in Scotland. For those of you new to Nesta, whether UK is innovation agency for social. Last year, we launched a new strategy to 20, 30%, three innovation missions addressing three of society's [00:01:00] biggest challenges. These are the healthy life mission focusing on tackling obesity and loneliness, the sustainable future mission, focusing on reducing household carbon emissions and increasing green jobs on the fairest start mission, which seems to narrow the outcome gap between children going up in disadvantage and then more affluent peers.

Um, and now, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Mary Jackson. Mary is head of education and communities of learning through landscapes. The UK is leading our outdoor learning and play HRC. She's also co-founder of the international school grinds lions global network, working to enrich children's learning by improving the way school grinds are designed.

Further to that. Mary is a Churchill fellow having visited, so that Africa, Australia, and New Zealand to understand how they linked to school grind, design with heritage and culture. Just definitely something I'll come back to the discussion later. Um, so welcome, Mary.

Mary Jackson: Thank you very much. That's brilliant.

Thank you. I think we're all ready to go. [00:02:00] Yep. Anything else before we start? Um, otherwise we just share the slides, please. Um, hopefully lovely. Fantastic. So hello and welcome to you all, thank you for joining us. I'm really excited to share this presentation with you today. So, yes and I was already introduced me.

So I don't have to say much about that. Um, I will tell you a little bit about learning through landscapes, where the UK school grants charter. Uh, we were set up in 1990 by the department for education after they did some research, there was some research following, pointing out what school grounds were like around the country.

And there were often a lot of very barren gray and green deserts. Um, and they weren't really being used for teaching and learning. Although some schools. Even then we're doing some great things. So we've been doing this for over 30 years now and we say that children and young people at the heart of what we do.

So we're about children and education. First, we just happen to do things outside. Um, so. The things that we do. Uh, [00:03:00] we train school staff, that's teachers and non teaching staff and earliest practitioners. We also work with designers to help them to think about how they can design better school grounds, and other specialists who work in the area.

We run a range of projects with partners, um, across the country, sometimes local, sometimes national and also international. And we support, um, and work with researchers, uh, to help them to understand. How outdoor learning and play benefits children as well. We produce a range of resources and guidance, uh, for schools and work with, uh, some of the national governments to help produce policy documents.

So I want you to want to start by you thinking about what your own school grounds were like. Uh, if you want to add this into the comments, please feel free, but you don't have to. I just want you to think when you were at school, especially if you were at a state school, I can predict. Probably picture what your school grounds were like.

They were probably mixture of, of Ashfelt. If you were [00:04:00] in an urban area, it may have been only Ashfelt, but some areas you would have had grass sometimes unusable at some times of year. Um, and I just wonder, what were your favorite spaces? Were they the grass areas you could run around in you? Might've had trees usually around the border of the site, if any.

Were there special places you went to or were there places that you avoided because you knew it was either going to be cold or wet or that's maybe where the bullies were or things like that. So it's just kind of reminding yourself what your Grant's school grounds were like and how important they were when you were at school.

If children don't, um, enjoy their play time and break times, that's often a real impact on when they, don't, why they don't enjoy school as a. So just thinking about those spaces in the UK, each of the four nations has different education policies. So my main focus tends to be around England. Um, Most of those schools would have been designed in 19th or 20th century.

And that's, there were different [00:05:00] priorities and climate change. Wasn't something that we were talking about, um, and outdoor learning and play and mental health weren't things that really were the top of the agenda. Um, in England now, new schools don't actually have to have any school grounds at all.

They're not required to have any of their own. As long as they have access to other spaces, but that does limit how they can use those spaces. So it's really not ideal. Uh, we sit on the school playing fields advisory panel, which is there to protect school grounds, um, so that if schools are wanting to sell off their land or local authority usually, or academy.

Once I left the land or change its use where there to make sure that that is the best thing to happen. And we advise the government on that. Um, so I will talk about national education, nature park, maybe a little bit later on it's a new initiative by the government in England at the moment. So, what I'm really focusing on today is how health and wellbeing is affected by the way, school grounds are designed and used.

Just a point to [00:06:00] say that the images that I'm showing are all school grounds, and there'll be UK examples, unless otherwise stated. So if you see a label it's from somewhere else, then you'll you'll know that that's why. Um, so I got to focus around the five steps to mental wellbeing. Cause it seems like a quite good structure and actually school grounds fit in really, really well with this.

So if we start by connecting with other people, well, school grounds are the place where you make your friends. Um, it's where you learn to play and live and be, and, uh, interact with other people. And that's for learning for play and socializing. So really important spaces, uh, while you're. And that can be through play that is provided for and designed for.

So these children in Yokohama have got amazing grants, and this is just one space that they're, they're playing with each other and interacting with their friends, but actually in any space, this is a, an image of a school [00:07:00] in scope. Um, so you don't have to have amazing school grants. Um, I'll talk about why it is a good idea to have amazing school grounds, but you can have those connections and connecting with people wherever you are.

And they will remain, remember that experience, um, of their friends checking water at them. And it was probably very cold at the time as well, but they were having a whale of a time and it's a memory for them and a shared expense. And those shared experiences can be the design of school grounds really helps that, um, shared experiences to take place.

And it, it doesn't need to be complex design. It doesn't need to be elaborate. It can be as simple as this, this is kind of a drain pipe, basically, um, where children are finding it as a secret space to be, they feel less separated from the others and they're in their own little world inside of that. Or it could be temporary features as well.

So this is a hammock in a school that was hung up in, in their school grounds and they're interacting [00:08:00] together and playing together and having a lot of fun. So it doesn't have to be. It can be as simple as the mud on the ground. Uh, this again is, is in Japan, in Yokohama. And this is where the children are interacting with the practitioner with the early years practitioner.

And, and as simple as mud and in, in Yokohama, they tend to have this as their main surface if their school grounds. So they don't have Ashfelt, they might have a bit of. Um, but this is just the kind of ground underneath them. And they, they use it for, for sand play. They use it for sporting play. They use it for everything, um, like kind of multifunctional, but really getting in and their practitioners are great because they get in, you can see she's got dirty and muddy hands as that child that they really get engaged with the.

But it's also about interacting and, um, responding to other people, um, your friends and your peers and your school grounds. So this is a, um, school in Berlin and that is, uh, a conveyor belt from [00:09:00] a supermarket that's being turned into. It's a bit like a Cecil and you have to respond and, and interact with the other person to make it work.

Um, and secondary school. Play is really important. And it's, and it's ignored often the secondary schools and primary schools, you know, children are playing it to the end of their primary and then they suddenly go into secondary. And, um, some how play is often seen as not a thing you do in secondary schools and less it's sport.

Um, but it is really important that those opportunities are there for, for the older pupils to interact with each other. And that can be more formal seating spaces. It can be really informal places like this. So that connection at school grounds is a vital place for that connection with people. Next one is being physically active and we can think of two things that school grounds kind of automatically think of.

When we think about being active in school grounds, we think about sport and we think about, uh, play and maybe providing risky and challenging play. Um, and that a young boy [00:10:00] is, is really enjoying. He is actually jumping from seat to seat from bench to bench. We're put there specifically for play, but he's making the most.

Um, In your account, but we really saw that even very young children were engaged in what could be seen as very risky activities. Um, these are three and four year olds climbing up those tires and swinging on that swing. Um, and that's because they were introduced to these at a very young age. They watch each other.

You wouldn't put this into, um, a school grounds and suddenly say to a child who's. Done anything like it before, right? Climb up. It's absolutely safe. You build up to that, but it's really important that we give children the opportunity to take risks, to be challenged, to find out where their boundaries are, to learn what is safe and what isn't safe.

And if they don't have those thrills and excitement in a managed and safe environment, they will go and find that danger elsewhere. And there's a very different thing between risk and. Um, so even with the [00:11:00] smallest of children, um, they can really get engaged with getting active by building things and climbing things.

So this young child has just found a plank of wood and has linked it up against a log. And then he go up, climbing is a fantastic using his imagination, using his creativity, learning some science on the way and taking a few risks, but understanding where his limit. And that can be with older children, too loose parts are often a great way of encouraging really creative, interactive play.

You'll see here, we've got boys and girls playing together. We've got children at different ages playing together, and these resources can be quickly renewed. They're inexpensive, easy to replace and just it's. It's the old cardboard box syndrome. Isn't it. It's where you can find many more. Opportunities for play in the cardboard box of maybe the toy that comes out of it and loose parts provides those options.[00:12:00]

But you can create a more robust features, more permanent features within the school. And again, this is in Berlin, um, where they create amazing, wonderful place spaces. They discovered about 30 years ago that their children were having. Uh, problems, uh, with behavior because all they had was Ashfelt there's and it's taken them 30 years and they have now created some amazing nature, rich play spaces.

And you'll see that the nature is encroaching in there. It's not being kind of cutaway and managed the way it's part of the space, but that place space is also wonderful place. You could imagine having a class sitting out there on that, or a group of kids sitting on that space and talking with each other.

So it's a multifunctional kind of facility. Um, and it can be as simple as just, you know, if you're having a tree down. Well, let's not just get rid of it. Let's incorporate it into the place-based. So the next one is about taking notice. And I think, uh, this is really important. It's that [00:13:00] opportunity to slow down, making you relax and the transition spaces between the school building and the school grounds is an important place for this.

This child in this image is just sitting at the edge of the playground, watching what's going on and deciding what he might do next, how we might join it. So creating those spaces, um, around the edges of playgrounds are really good spaces to do this, these two boys coming together, talking and chatting that connection again, but also being able to see what's going on and deciding do I want to join in with that don't tie and just having that overview of their grounds.

And it can be as simple as this is a. Uh, school grounds in Scotland. Um, what you can't really see, is there a kind of space under those logs for children to play underneath as well, but that boy is just sitting up there finding that quiet space on his own, just getting away from the Hurly burly of what's going on around, but being able to see what's happening, still feeling part of it, even though he's slightly away [00:14:00] from it.

If that makes sense. And having that connection to slow down and really think about the natural world around as well, taking the world around you into, uh, into your work, into your play, and just being able to have that contact. And I'll talk more about contact with nature, but that time to slow down, see what's going on and taking notice.

And that can be in learning as much as it is in. Which moves us on to keep learning a really important part. Um, and this is all about how we provide the resources for learning, how we get, create some gathering spaces and also how we train our staff to be able to teach outdoors and take the children outside and have these experiences outside.

You don't have to, as I think I've probably shown already, you don't have to have great school grants for great learning to take place. This is, you know, a piece of chalk on a bit of Ashfelt and they're creating a labyrinth that will take them [00:15:00] into that quiet contemplation again. So it's a lot of kind of interaction between these different.

Or this, I don't know if you can see it. This is catapulting an angry bird and to the left, you may see there's a tape measure on the ground and the children will measure how far they shoot the angry bird and that all those measurements will be taken. And analyzed later, who had the longest shot who had the shot?

It was about average. What was our, the average. For the class. So lots of maths that can go on, uh, within that and just the measuring of the distance as well as maths in itself. Um, so learning outdoors can be really simple. It can be as simple as, you know, finding the volume and checking the volume of a container measuring out and kind of doing the calculation, right?

What's the volume of this container going to be, and then actually filling it with water and make realizing your calculations actually. This may look peculiar. This is my boss. This is Colleen. [00:16:00] She's our CEO. And what she's actually doing is measuring the height of a tree. This may not look like, um, you know, proper maths and we do lots of different ways of measuring tree, but actually what she's doing is she's spending over and when the height you are.

Far enough away from the tree to be able to just see the height of the tree between your legs. That means that basically you're looking at it at a 45 degree angle, which means you are the distance away from it as the height of the tree. It may seem inaccurate, but it's remarkably accurate, but we do other methods as well, too.

But if you, if you already have in your school grounds as a tree, you've got new things you can do. Um, basically, as I've said, you don't need to have a major school grounds to do amazing learning, but the more you have, the more potential there is the more creative you can be, a more engaging you can be.

So this is a simple language activity. This is, uh, an alphabet, it's a school grounds, but so often we see in classrooms, those kinds of alphabets around the inside of classrooms. [00:17:00] Well, why not make our own school grounds alphabet? So a is for apple. I can't see what I think B is for blue. C is for cone. I once had, um, a group of teachers.

I do this as teacher training, a group of teachers put a bit of litter on N and Y literal. And Andy said, oh, it's naughty. So, you know, you can slot that in, in any way they want, but you're building your own school grounds, alphabet. This is another simple activity with. Looking at how many different adjectives can you think of that?

Describe a simple leaf. Um, and it's, it's so much better if you've got that leaf in your hand. Cause you can feel it. You can smell it, you can touch it. You can see all the crinkly edges that if you were just trying to describe a leaf without having it in your hands, you just wouldn't come up with those same vocabulary.

You wouldn't have that, those adjectives coming from the. And then as they grow older, they bring that learning into poetry and narrative writing. And again, the experience you've got about a [00:18:00] fig tree on this, that child wouldn't have written about it in the same way. If they haven't experienced that fig tree firsthand, if they hadn't touched, it felt the shade and seen live the experience of that.

But that it's not just about academic learning. It's also about knowing, um, building your skills and learning different things. So child on the left is learning how far and how easy it, or how difficult it is to climb that ladder and those girls on the right. I love this. This is something we saw in Japan that is, um, a kind of, it's a wooden structure that could be moved and it.

Push your legs up and run around it. And it takes you over the bar. So learning how to do those back, some assaults over, over. But it's not just about the pupils. It's about the teachers too. Um, so this is some CPD with, we did with a group of secondary teachers, and this was working out how working backwards to calculate PI and [00:19:00] the larger scale, you can do this for less than the margin of error.

So if you create lots of large circles and measure the radius and the circumference, you work out pie, you get a remarkably accurate answer to this as well. And they were going to use it to encourage students to do a level one. Um, but also part of that learning is finding the spaces in which to play in creating, sorry, in which to gather your class together.

So creating spaces that have a very different atmosphere from inside the classroom and they can be small spaces, they can be larger spaces. I was surprised that some secondary pupils thought this was a great space. I was expecting to go all that primary, but actually they thought it was a lovely space in which.

Um, a lot of schools are thinking about things like forest schools. That's not what we do particularly, but we do do teaching outdoors and encouraging kind of bushcraft. So that's that kind of feel of that space, putting, um, using straw bales to create a space. Um, so that it's a temporary space and you might test [00:20:00] out where the bales go and your Lotus towards the edge of the tree, not with the tree in the middle, because if you're sitting on those straw bales and the trees in the middle, you can't see across the.

But you can also make obviously permanent features once you've decided maybe test it out where you want the seating to go with something temporary, you can then turn it into permanent spaces and curves circles, horseshoes, other ways that are best to bring a class together. And there is more permanent feature, lovely feature and surrounded by trees to give shade.

So giving to others, we believe it's really important that the young people are involved in how their school grounds developed. And I'm getting engaged with making some of those changes. So these children built that storytelling. Um, we believe it's important to have that student voice, that pupil voice, and there's loads of ways that they can get involved from finding out what's already there coming up with ideas, costings, budgets, [00:21:00] and also helping to make those changes.

So that's just one activity. We do engaging with the pupils in consultation, and then they can get involved in making things. So this was stripping the bark of a central. Uh, drilling holes in it. So this was going to be a bee hotel and learning to use proper tools. And there we go. That's what, one of the B hotels look like, and these very proud peoples who had made it, and it can be about planting.

There's so many different ways. Young people can get engaged with changing that. It can be about growing fruits and vegetables in their grounds. A lot of, um, pupils grow and cook food in their ground. So here we are, we've got some examples of food being cooked that was grown in the school. And that's a lovely one too.

That's um, preparing lunch outside.

So those are the five kinds of traditional stats. I'm just going to add nature in [00:22:00] with as well. And I think all of us have realized during the pandemic how important nature is. So I'm going to quickly run through this and just show that nature doesn't can be incorporated into school grounds in very simple ways, just by not cutting the grass, you do need to manage these spaces.

It's not just leave it alone and see what happens, but very simple, or bring it into the heart of the group. Creating bringing in nature where your seating is, or just the more nature you've got that engaging through learning. These are children doing a wildlife survey, or even in an asphalt setting, building their own bug hotel and bringing nature in that way.

Uh, growing food again helps to bring nature in a lot of schools, uh, do that. And this wonderful, um, statement from so David Attenborough as well, he's our patron. Um, and if children don't grow up knowing about an experience, appreciating nature, then they won't understand it. And if they [00:23:00] don't understand it and protected, they weren't protected.

And if they don't protect it, who will so really important from that perspective. We can happy children. Okay. I'm going to finish there. Um, and I'm going to, um, yeah, we can, I'll talk with Nolan. I think he's got some questions, but I think that'll get us a flavor of, of what is possible and why school grounds really matter me.

Niall Shannon: I love that such a visual thing. I love the use of the conveyor belt and

Mary Jackson: tires, the limiting factors, and it

Niall Shannon: find plan really. And before, before we launch into the, the challenging questions, can you tell us a bit about where your passion for outdoor learning and I taught play Kim from and how you've got to this.

Mary Jackson: Yeah. I mean, I think I was a child that really enjoyed sports and I was a girl guide and a Queens guide. So I did camping and stuff like that. So for me, it was more [00:24:00] about just the activity of being outside. Um, I then. So I trained as a, as a PE teacher, a secondary PE teacher. So I spent, obviously my teaching career, lots of that was outside.

And then I actually retrained as a landscape architect and that brought kind of the nature of the landscape and the natural environment on board as well. So kind of combining those two together. It's kind of seems like a natural progression that this is where I've ended up. Um, but yeah, for me, definitely the start was, um, you know, as a child where you build dens, we had woods over the road from where I lived and it was that kind of activity, but also just loving nature because we were engaged in it rather than at that point, really wanting to know so much more about it, I guess.

Niall Shannon: So it was an inevitable coming together of your personally, professionally. Sounds good. So the first thing I wanted to ask you about was the kind of the design of these spaces and really huggy capture the needs and reflect local context and kind of what's [00:25:00] what are the fundamental requirements for designing one of these things?

Mary Jackson: Well, I think the first thing is that it should be the design process needs to be child centered. It is, these are spaces for children, even more than the buildings, in a sense, they are the spaces that children kind of consider to be their own. They kind of have the ownership of those outdoor spaces. So that's the.

First key thing that we need to take the ideas magnitudes of children into account and understanding their needs. And when we talk to schools, we say to them, don't ask what you want to have in your school grounds, ask what you want your children to be able to do. What experiences do you want your children to have?

So that is really, really important. And part of that is about creating a nature. Rich. Um, that brings so much potential to learning, to play to mental health, all those kinds of, um, aspects that nature can bring. It needs to be, um, the more variety that you can bring within in the grounds, the better, and the more [00:26:00] flexibility that gives you flexibility for teaching and for learning as well.

We need to think about kind of inclusivity. Accessibility as well. And that doesn't mean making everything, uh, kind of flattened and on an interesting, it needs to be challenging for everybody, but also thinking about those children that are going to use their sites. So, you know, there's, there's so much that you can incorporate into really good school grounds.

You know, I spoke there about the importance of risk and challenge that is really important, but it's happening. The staff that can manage that and understand it as well. So we kind of have this two-pronged approach really, which kind of reflects my, my own background, but it's about the spaces and it's about the use of those spaces and it needs to be.

That two sided approach, really to have the best, because we've seen bad school grounds being used amazingly for teaching and learning and play. And we've also seen great school grounds, not used well at all. And so it's the kind of combination of those [00:27:00] two that really makes it work.

Niall Shannon: That's great. And so thinking more about kind of creating them then using these spaces, what, what do you find that.

The barriers to both, like, I would guess it's probably never the children. So a lot of the barriers,

Mary Jackson: no, it's never the children. They always want to be out there and want to engage. I mean, you will have some children that don't, I mean, obviously nothing is right for everybody. The main barriers. Um, although even though I've said you can do a lot with the news, very low-cost or no-cost status.

One of the key barriers, um, funding is, is about. Um, because whatever you want to do, whether it's teacher training and having to pay for that, or whether it's, um, creating new features or even planting or whatever it is a barrier, there are, you know, as I say, some things you can do without out funding it's policies.

Um, so in Scotland, there is much more of an outdoors [00:28:00] approach and their curriculum for excellence. There's even a document about taking the curriculum outside and outdoor learning. Um, we don't have that in England, for example. Um, so those kinds of things really can be, can be barriers, but for some teachers, they are.

Uh, some teachers manage it. Um, when I started this health and safety was something that a lot of teachers would speak about, um, as a barrier for going outside. But these days I don't often hear that it's it said less often. I think teachers are now, um, more confident or more aware that you can do things maybe outside.

Um, and that it doesn't have to be dangerous. Um, it's no more dangerous. The most dangerous thing a child probably does each day is he's traveled to school by car, much more dangerous, but we, we talk about a risk benefit approach. And I think during COVID, we've all learned about risk benefits and, um, balancing up, is it, you know, better, better to have the vaccine, or is it better not to, depending on, you know, all sorts of things and we balance those [00:29:00] risks and benefits, and it's the same with, with school grounds, you balance the risks and benefits, um, to decide what you want.

So, um, yeah, I think. Teachers having time. Um, yes, especially when you get started, it obviously takes time to get things going and set things up. Um, but once you've got into the flow of it, like anything that you're going to do, any approach, any strategy, any teaching strategy you use takes time to get it going, but once you've got it going, then it becomes natural and it becomes just integrated into your everyday practice.

Niall Shannon: So, I guess the dream for these sorts of spaces is that they're included in design of new schools. But I know we talked the other day, like the, kind of the place-making budget being the first to get caught when they really interested, you know, how do you. Kind of communicate and reinforce the value of these spaces to designers or to funders or to people that actually make the decision about whether to [00:30:00] create

Mary Jackson: them or not.

It says, and as, as you say, it's, when you have a budget for a school, the first thing to go will be the school grounds. It's kind of, that's the bit that gets reduced and reduced and reduced. And one of my colleagues ex-colleagues talks about having, um, asking for within the kind of a whole design budget of a new school.

Can I have the cost of one classroom please? And that doesn't include the sports facilities somehow that gets the sports facilities get made. And I won't argue against that. I'm a PE teacher by training, but it's all those other spaces. And, and if you think what you could do with the cost or the value of one classroom outside, and that would be.

Uh, a classroom. If we call the whole of the outside space, our outdoor classroom, that is a classroom that will get used right across the school and in many different ways and can have numbers of classes out there at a time. So that seems a very reasonable kind of value. But what is most important is that that space.

Doesn't limit future [00:31:00] development and future change. What you don't want to do is get that space wrong in the first place, because then you're limiting the change. One of the things we have found a problem is with some schools that are PFI funded or. Then sometimes there is a, um, a resistance to change doesn't always happen, but there are some that, that proves really difficult to change things over time.

So getting it right at the start is really important, but that doesn't mean to say everything has to be finished at the start.

Niall Shannon: That's good. So, cause moving on and thinking about benefits and there's a great question. Just come in, which I'll get to. And you, so I guess inevitably we bring the benefits of outdoor play online well-being and that is obviously really important.

Crucially important. I'd be interested in. Your thoughts on potential impact on a 10 month as well from ?

Mary Jackson: Yeah. Um, well, it's quite difficult to [00:32:00] separate it out as a particular thing. So researchers have often found it difficult because obviously a school that does good outdoor learning will tend to be good, have good practices across the board.

It's not like you're going to do good outdoor learning and bad indoor learning. So it's quite hard to separate out, but all the research that has gone on suggests that outdoor learning. Uh, it's beneficial to the academic attainment of children and that learning in different environments is very memorable, more memorable.

Um, and there's, um, what is, so for example, if you learn maths in. Often, what will happen is you might learn a method of doing multiple multiplication or something, and you do the same. You repeat the same methodology, time and time again. What is beneficial about going outside is that you can apply those strategies in different situations.

And that's when it starts to get embedded into, uh, children and young people. When you apply that learning that you may be. Outside. So the inside and outside need to really [00:33:00] compliment each other. Um, but it just pushes and, and gives children, um, more creative approaches to finding solutions to problems and yeah, and, and the way they approach things.

So that, and that's the learning. And as I say, research tends to suggest that, um, academic attainment is, is raised when learning is taken outside.

Niall Shannon: And one thing you touched on in your presentation, We maybe don't talk about enough is the potential impact of benefits for the actual practitioner themselves.

We find outside and being active. Is that something you've kind of looked into a research

Mary Jackson: term? Um, so the research was done for outdoor classroom day, but found that actually teacher retention is better in those teachers that teach outside, which would tend to imply that the, the teaching is more enjoyable and more rewarding.

And, and I think. The case. I mean, we've already seen that nature is important for mental health of children while it's just as [00:34:00] important for mental health of the adults who take them out there as well and teach outside as well. So, That is just one element to it. But yeah, the teachers that we, we talked to, we, you know, we obviously talked to those teachers that are teaching outside and they're still enthusiastic about what they're doing and they're still enjoying teaching and they love seeing the response, uh, for the children they work with outside and that different response from many children.

From what they are like inside. I remember, um, working, observing one lesson that was outside and it was a practical lesson and it was using tools and all sorts of things. And there was this one little boy who was so engaged with it all and just amazing and brilliant and loved everything had hands up for every question.

And I said, oh, isn't he brilliant? I knew nothing about him. Oh, he's, he's absolutely fantastic. And I was told his class teacher wouldn't think that at all, because inside it wasn't the right environment. Outside. He loved nature. It was practical. It was hands-on and he thrived and it, yes, different children are going to respond in [00:35:00] different ways, but, um, that's what makes teaching exciting.

And that you, you learn to respond to the needs of your children and you see the results of it. And one of those things is taking them outside

Niall Shannon: to get to the question now. Potentially the kind of environmental benefit. And obviously we talked, you talked about connection with nature and young people, but you also talked about, I think an example in Berlin where they sort of designed that within the wider environment. Can you talk a little bit about that one

Mary Jackson: now?

Absolutely. I mean, there's 61,000 hectares of land in the school of state and across the UK, and that's a lot of land and 3,200. Plus schools. So that means that they actually have potential to have a, uh, an impact on climate change. And there is an impact for both the physical side of school grants, so mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

So whether that is reducing the hard surfacing, changing, even the color of the surfacing to [00:36:00] lower temperature, whether it's planting, whether it's water management for flooding or drought, or whether it's about using the outside as a, as an environment to teach. Uh, climate change, if you are teaching environmental subjects, surely part of that teaching has to be outside.

And therefore, if you've got school grounds that demonstrate those different features of water management, et cetera, et cetera of heat mitigation, or that you work with the pupils to develop your grounds, to improve them in those ways, um, that has got to be better and, and the best will in the world pupils can't installs solar panels.

On roofs, but what they can do is they can help plant the school grounds and, and look at helping, uh, mitigate and adapt to climate change in that way. Uh, so yeah.

Niall Shannon: Yeah, that's fair. I think that answers George's question. And Kate's also flagged that there's a school in Edinburgh. That's designed their outdoor space around the budgets.

That sounds great.[00:37:00]

You have no choice, but to design it

Mary Jackson: themselves.

Niall Shannon: Another interesting thing then is I think. There's a perception that outdoor play or learning is for early years or potentially primary skill. And does the benefit decline with age or just the appetite to do

Mary Jackson: it? That's really hard question to answer because. The appetite does lessen. And there's, there's lots of reasons for that.

I mean, early years in the UK as a whole, a very good at the outdoor learning bit. And a lot of schools, nurseries, kindergartens will have free flow where children can go inside and outside whenever they want. And it's very much part of the earliest curriculum in all four nations across the UK primary schools, you get a little bit more and, um, the government is, um, in the middle of writing a sustainability and climate change strategy.

Um, that [00:38:00] is, um, part of that is to get children and young people more engaged with the natural world. So looking at a new science curriculum that will look at children to be able to identify some of the natural features around them, plants and animals and stuff like that, and looking at a more sustainability a level.

Um, so there is some move towards that. There is, um, The idea of it, national education, nature park. So the, there will be a kind of online portal where schools can survey their grants to find out how bio-diverse they are and then, um, improve their grounds and add that data. And that goes right across from early years, right through to tertiary education.

So that will go on beyond secondary, into. Uh, colleges and universities as well. And there's also going to be a climate change ward that will go all the way through as well. So there is a bit more of a belief and understanding. I think that it has to go through the problem in secondary schools. A lot of [00:39:00] it is, is that that teachers tend to be quite siloed in their own department.

So if they, um, you know, science curriculum, Tight learning outside and certainly, um, geography can as well, but a lot of other departments will say, oh, that's for them. It's not for me. Or that's the PE departments. Um, and so, um, it is harder to get teachers to take learning outside. And therefore, I think probably the research I suspect has not been done to see the, the impact that it has on all the children we know from our experience that it works.

We've just done a project we're just finishing off a project in Leicester where we've been working with both primary and secondary schools looking at Poland. And we know that that learning continues in secondary schools as well. So yes, we've got, I mean, that's 24 schools in one city, but it's showing that, but that can take place.

Um, but it's because it's less frequent. There's probably less evidence for it at the moment,

Niall Shannon: possibly a [00:40:00] changing culture on timetabling and things required to actually facilitate

Mary Jackson: it. I mean, a lot of this is about changing attitudes and changing culture. Yes. It's. Just about, you know, putting it on the curriculum.

I think in secondary schools, the key thing is if it goes into the exam process, then it will take place so that we need the examining boards to say, or we need to have some of this experience of being outside and doing some of that learning outside. And then. It will come back, hopefully enter into schools.

And there is, um, an idea of GCSE, um, in natural history, which is kind of going through, um, approval systems at the moment. And, and that may, you know, bring more of that in as well, but it needs to go right the way through. Yeah,

Niall Shannon: that sounds great. And then that's asked, and so a child who has potentially a really good outdoor learning kind of are they experience are far spills, that sort of thing.

Yeah, transitioning to a more formal learning environment. Is that something that some [00:41:00] children find challenging?

Mary Jackson: Um, I don't know the answer to be honest. Um, I think some, well, I think, I think you can't, they can't not, um, some will someone, I mean, it tends to be gradual because primary schools do often. Do more outdoor learning and then it gets less and less as schools as children go up.

But it's also, it's not just about learning as well. It's about play as well. We've just been starting some secondary research. We've just done a pilot, um, looking at that transition from primary to secondary and, and how play is affected. And we've been working with play Scotland on that. And. You know, that, that playing as mentioned that playing at primary school and then not playing in secondary, um, is, is really important.

And, and that socializing is incredibly important. And I think it's even more important now kind of with COVID and post COVID. Um, for example, I was in a secondary school. A [00:42:00] few weeks ago where we were walking around and some of the sixth form was obviously had the free period and they were outside.

These boys were kicking around a football and the head teacher said to me that would never have happened before COVID, but because they had been separated from each other, they needed that, um, way of socializing and getting back together and interacting again. Uh, so I know I kind of bit off the topic, but I think it.

Really important. Um, but at the moment, it, it's not going through, but we are looking at that transition, particularly from primary to secondary. Um, and yeah, it tells off gradually, um, what we're trying, we keep trying to, to get more secondary schools to, to bring it back in. Um, but it is, it's a bigger scale as well.

Secondary teachers, primary teachers see the, understand the whole kind of cross-curricular thing because they're teaching across the curriculum secondary. Less. So, and that does cause some problems.

Niall Shannon: I think LinkedIn, to staff's point, we've been looking at research this week that [00:43:00] blinds the risks of exposing to formal learning too early, almost conversely, what we've just been saying, then I want to move the conversation on to kind of access and inclusions.

I think this kind of spans both the design, but also the usage or the engagement or mind these spaces. So high in your design. I mean, your work to encourage teachers, how do you sort of, I guess, create an equal sense of entitlement or belonging in these spaces, whether that's across, we've talked about gender or it could be ethnicity or mobility, you know, How do you make the spaces for all and share the benefits equitably?

Mary Jackson: Yeah. Um, I'm just writing a note, so I don't forget. Uh, alright. Um, well there's a huge range of things about inclusion in there. And I mean, special schools, I think generally are often better at this. So in some senses, special schools understand these issues already. Um, and so we're better at dealing with them.[00:44:00]

Um, and they are more flexible in, in how they can approach the curriculum and those kinds of things. And so often we do see some great things happening in special schools. Although I do also hear things. About, um, priority of space, not always been given to, to children with additional needs. Sometimes it's felt that they don't need the same space as, as other mainstream, uh, children.

And that just seems to me to be. I think it is really important. Um, and there are, I think every teacher, as far as kind of delivering curriculum outside, every teacher understands differentiation. And it's just looking at that in a, in a different way outside. It's the same issues. It's the same, um, things that you need to think about.

Um, and just looking at how you can engage pupils in different aspects of that learning and different approaches and having those different approaches has got to [00:45:00] be a benefit.

You talked about kind of ethnicity and gender, and I'll talk about ethnicity first. Um, many. Uh, children from diverse backgrounds are often also a disadvantage for all sorts of reasons. And we've been working on a project called my school, my planet. Uh, we did a pilot, um, in the middle of the pandemic in October, September, October, 2020.

So that was a challenge 49 schools thousand kids across the UK. And that was really looking at how do we engage disadvantaged children and those from, um, Different diverse groups. And we had a very diverse group of children, um, engaged in the project. And one of the things we were trying to do was to link that outdoor, um, natural environments to their heritage.

Um, part of that might've been. Talking about, um, where foods might come from, where they grow and what [00:46:00] they, they do. Um, what's traditional recipes. They cook at home making links to the community. In that way. It might've been looking at where birds were migrating from and to, and realizing that they were migrating to them from some of the countries that were the heritage of, of those young people.

Um, and, but it is it's. Yeah, it's an interesting thing. Um, we just had an international school grounds Alliance conference two weeks. And in south America, they're particularly looking at linking back to the indigenous heritage of the populations where it's been imposed as a kind of European culture for so many years, and that they're looking back and go, right.

We need to bring our own culture. Back into this. And so they're looking at design features and, and colors and, and all sorts of things and shape, you know, everything that links in. So I think that is, is another important thing. Um, and then you're also talking about gender and if you think of school grounds, we had, again at the conference, we had, um, a researcher landscape architect [00:47:00] professor in the states who's based in Denver.

And she has been looking at how school grounds, um, creates power structures. And that the traditional school grounds have kind of large areas of Ashfelt flat areas of asphalt and grass tends to be dominated by sport and tends to be dominated by. And that actually, if you create this more nature, rich and engaging environment, much more kind of multifunctional, uh, interesting and varied environment, then that gender balance gets gets better, gets balanced better.

And the chill, the girls will tend to be more active and the boys won't be any lesser. So it's, you know, so again, it's creating, nature-based really interesting engaging and multifaceted environments that provide a range of opportunities for a range of young people. So I suppose that's the message of.

It's looking at the individual needs of the children that you have at [00:48:00] your school. And how do we create environments? How do we create learning that supports their needs in lots of different ways? And the more different ways you can do that, then the more children you are likely spear to support.

Niall Shannon: That's a great answer.

Yeah. I guess it's sort of changing your perception about doing learning to being something physical to actually it could just be communicating and

Mary Jackson: collaborating communication in that little space can be really difficult, um, with children and adults, with the human, uh, hearing impairment. A lot of secondary schools, when those, the rebuild of lots of secondary schools, there was a great kind of idea of, uh, a lot of, kind of U-shaped, uh, buildings or courtyards that had hard surfaces.

And there was so much echoing. Because there was no planting, um, and that made the acoustics appalling. And nobody thought about that outside. They'll have thoughts about the acoustics in the classroom, but obviously nobody had thought about the acoustics outside and that is, is just as important as [00:49:00] many of these other things as well.

Niall Shannon: I can definitely remember working in skills shaped like that. Yeah. Yeah. I loved, I loved you talking about the kind of bringing in heritage and culture and it links to one of the questions we got in advance, which was around. The kind of opportunities of bringing arts and leading performance art into these spaces and what the potential benefit of that is.

Have you had the

Mary Jackson: experience of that? I one of my kind of things I like to, I I'm, I'm kind of amateur artist, so I love anything that's kind of doing, um, you know, experimental art and outdoors in particular. I, I love to do. And, um, yes, we had, we've done projects in the past where we've linked, um, secondary pupils actually with, um, culture and heritage through arts projects.

So that does link very strongly, but that we had a, a group at the conference, um, the other week who was doing, um, Eco eco related drama and school grounds, and then bringing that in and getting children to [00:50:00] engage with their environment through performance art. So yes, very much, uh, something that, uh, we like to do.

We've we've got a number of, kind of. Uh, training modules. And one of those is for secondary art outdoors and your school grants. So we've been thinking a lot about how lots of different ways of really using the natural environment as a setting and, um, yeah, as an inspiration for, for us in loads of different ways.

So, uh, absolutely potential for that. Um, and I think reflecting people's own heritage, interestingly in Berlin. There is a heritage of graffiti because of the, of the Berlin wall. And that used to have loads of graffiti on it. So you'll see in lots of school grounds, there are huge areas of graffiti around that.

We'd go, oh my goodness. So that's part of their culture. Um, so I think that's a really interesting thing.

Niall Shannon: Yeah, look this eight of the secret feet in British school. I promised I would ask you about [00:51:00] your, I didn't promise. I said, I'd ask you about your Churchill fellowship experience, which just sounded amazing.

And again was a blight. Celebrating local heritage and culture. So just, I guess just tell us about what I experienced for all knowledge.

Mary Jackson: So this was a long time ago. It was 2003. So the best part of 20 years ago, but I was really fortunate. I got a Churchill fellowship to travel to South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

And then I cheekily carried on around the world and went to, uh, San Francisco and Boston. And. Uh, partly because I have relatives there, but they're also used to be learning through landscape's Bermuda, but that's another story. Um, but what I was doing, yes, I was particularly trying to look at how, um, school grounds in those various nations we use to connect with.

Indigenous culture in particular and how that came through. And I saw, um, in South Africa, there has been a culture that anything [00:52:00] out of Africa, and this is a same it's 20 years ago. Anything else Africa wasn't was much better than anything from Africa. That European kind of was better. And they were starting with this Localist lacquer, which I believe means.

Locally as good. And so they were starting to think reflects that much more in, in growing. I mean, they've got fantastic plants in South Africa, much better than we've got in Europe. So they were starting to bring that in. They were starting to look at how they could introduce that culture. And in Australia and New Zealand, I saw amazing murals that were Aboriginal and Merry neural and artworks coming in.

I was seeing, um, Bush tops. Trails, rather than the Bush Tucker trial, which was looking at an indigenous planting and how that was used. I was in South Africa, they have moody gardens, which are all about kind of medicinal. And the kind of plants that you might grow in there. So there was a lot of, kind of linking there and I'm thinking about those links to indigenous populations.

And I think that is becoming more and more important, more and more [00:53:00] recognized, um, around the world now as well. So yeah, it was fascinating to see, um, how that was carried out in different countries. And I recommend to anybody to do a church. Yeah, it does

Niall Shannon: send signs up to it, but yeah, a lot, a lot that the UK could learn in terms of celebrating different heritage as much in your spaces.

Um, yeah, that sounds great. And we're getting relatively close to the end. And I asked, I said I was going to ask you a question the other day, which I want to give you a chance to answer it. What does the future look like for, I do a learning and school grinds designed in the UK.

Mary Jackson: Yeah. I've been thinking about this.

And, um, you talked about my kind of vision for the future for school grants. And as I've said before is kind of this two strands. It's the design that is that firstly, all schools should have to have school grounds. That is the first and most important thing that as I've said before in England, that is no longer.

So that is kind of my [00:54:00] most key and fundamental thing. And then we need to think about designing school grounds for the 21st century, not just repeating what we've done in the 19th and 20th centuries. We need to think about making sure that sustainability and climate change is part of that design process, that these spaces are nature rich, that they are child centered.

Um, and. That really engages with young people because there's, you know, so David Russ said, if they don't understand nature, they won't look after it. And there are our future. Um, and the best way to engage people with nature and to want to look after it is not just teaching them about it. In fact, that's not at all.

It's getting them to engage with nature, to get hands-on, to enjoy nature, to play and in the natural world to, um, learn how to grow things and things like that. So it's much more about that. Hands-on learning. That experiential learning, um, that is really important. So that needs to be designed into the school grounds.

And secondly, it also needs to be in teacher [00:55:00] training and there isn't some teacher training, but not in most. So the teachers need to be given the skills, the knowledge and the ability to do this, uh, with the pupils in the school. So it's those two strands and they need to work.

Niall Shannon: Totally. One thing I was hoping you were going to mention was the, uh, the legislation aspect where I think you used to be quoted a stat of at square meters per

Mary Jackson: people.

Yes. Yes. This is true. Um, w at the conference we were talking last week in the UK, there is no statutory. Amount of space that, that children have had to outside there isn't guidance. And, um, when school playing fields are looked for, for disposal and stuff, they go to that guidance as the kind of standard.

Um, but in Sweden, we were told that, um, each child had to have 30 square meters of outside space, at least 30 square meters per child of outside space in, in Sweden. So we are very. Yeah,

Niall Shannon: sign us up for that. That sounds great. [00:56:00] Um, yeah, I think unfortunately about a time I could, I could totally talk about this for days and I can tell you could as well, but yeah, just say thank you so much for your time and your insights.

And I think I'm sure I've been on the call is really enjoying. Um, yeah. Any sort of closing remarks for

Mary Jackson: yourself? Not really just to say, you know, this is actually really important and I think, um, school grounds have become more and more important kind of with COVID because children's mental health is, has really been impacted and that having great grounds and getting children outside children, young people outside can really help towards that.

It's not the, you know, the solution to everything, but it can be part of that.

Niall Shannon: Children and adults as well. Of course. Yeah. Thank you so much. Um, yeah, just to flag for anybody watching there is a, um, questionnaire feedback survey in the comments, please. The Aladdin and for those interested, our next nest to talks to his, with Margaret [00:57:00] Heffernan, he'll be talking by the rule of uncertainty and the climate crisis on Thursday, the 10th of March at one 30, also a chance to say thank you and farewell to our events manager, Christina Warren, I think this is her last event.

So thank you for all her hard work and all that. And of course thank you to everybody who made the time to come along today and listen to us. Listen to us yelling. Um, yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you again.