Making the invisible visible: the pedagogical affordances of outdoor learning in a nursery and a primary school

Despite the extensively researched benefits of outdoor learning, educators often report lack of knowledge, confidence and institutional support in developing place-responsive pedagogies. This paper discusses some of the findings of a grassroots, Participatory Action Research methodology we developed with pedagogues from a nursery and a primary school in England, to generate knowledge about ways of supporting children’s learning outdoors. Drawing on an ecological framework, we invited our partners to video-record themselves in-action, then watch and reflect on the educational affordances they perceived and pedagogies they employed. Participants theorised about their pedagogies and reflected on their role in supporting children’s autonomy and agency outdoors. They discussed the opportunities but also complexities of trying to align outdoor with indoor learning and generated knowledge about ways of combining the two, in line with curricular demands.