Outdoor Learning Essentials: Ideas and Tips For All Seasons

outdoor learning

What is outdoor learning?

Outdoor learning (or outdoor education) simply refers to organised learning in an outdoor setting.

Outdoor education often require students to participate in a variety of adventurous challenges and outdoor activities such as hiking, climbing, canoeing, ropes courses and group games with the purpose of improving their academic knowledge and skills.

Outdoor learning is commonly associated with the philosophy of experiential and environmental education. Outdoor learning is often referred synonymously with outdoor schooling, forest schools and wilderness education.

Outdoor education might seem relatively new but it's actually not a recent phenomenon, buzz word or trend. In fact, it occurs, in one form or another, in most if countries of the world.

However, its implementation can vary greatly depending on a variety of factors. It's therefore important to take an open-minded approach when learning about the benefits of outdoor learning for your child.

What is the purpose of outdoor learning?

Some of the aims of outdoor education include:

  • Teaching children how to overcome adversity

  • Enhancing their personal and social development

  • Helping children to develop a deeper relationship with nature

  • Raising attainment through interactive teaching and better learning experiences

  • Teaching children outdoor survival skills

  • Improving their problem solving skills

  • Enhancing team work

  • Reducing screen time

  • Outdoor learning Ideas

Examples of Outdoor Activities For Teachers, Caregivers and Parents

Examples of outdoor activities that can be organised by parents, teachers and guardians include:

  • Digging

  • Cloud gazing

  • Cycling

  • Photography

  • Hiking

  • Gardening

  • Countryside walks

  • Camping

  • Fishing

  • Hunting

  • Canoeing

  • Sailing

  • Rock Climbing

  • Horseback riding

  • Skiing

Outdoor Learning For Children With SEN

Outdoor education can be particularly beneficial for children who have special educational needs. Research by Szczutko et al, 2018 highlighted that the social, intellectual, emotional and physical benefits of outdoor learning were significant. For example, it reduced anxiety, improved trust and self-perception.

Additionally, SEN pupils experienced vast academic benefits from learning outside. If you’re a parent with a child that is neuro-divergent or has additional needs, it’s definitely worth incorporating outdoor activities into their routine.

Here are some ideas that will help to make these activities educational:

  • Using sticks to learn about 2D and 3D shapes

  • Writing a story about the outdoor location or activity

  • Using a potato peeler to whittle sticks and tree branches. These can then be used for art projects or as stimuli for creative writing. Alternatively, they can be used to help with mastering mathematical concepts such as probability, arithmetic and ratio. A little imagination can go a long way!

  • Playing in the snow

  • Observing nature through outdoor play and activities that encourage pupils to not only observe natural wildlife and vegetation, but also encourage them to analyse them and learn more about their behaviour. This can be particularly helpful when teaching science-related topics such as the lifecycle, plants and animals.

  • Lying down outside and glazing at the clouds might sound silly but it can be a great way to teach children about nature, descriptive writing and science.

According to Rickinson et al (2004), children benefit immensely from outdoor learning. These benefits include:

  • An increase in their knowledge and skills

  • A change in environmental behaviours and

  • attitudes to learning

  • Improved social development

  • Enhanced self-esteem and confidence

  • Improved physical development

  • A reduction in stress levels

Outdoor education has many benefits and is definitely something to incorporate into your child's learning routine.

FREE 11+ Vocabulary Pack (Instant Download)

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We’re excited to announce the release of our new 11+ vocabulary packs which have specifically been designed for children who want to significantly improve their vocabulary in preparation for their school entrance exams.

Each pack contains a series of key words that are commonly found in 11+ Verbal Reasoning and English papers. They’re also useful regardless of whether your child is preparing for the ISEB, CSSE, GL Assessment, CEM or The Northern Ireland Transfer Test.

Why Is Vocabulary Important For The 11+?

If your child is preparing for any school entrance exam at a selective school, they will most likely be required to sit a Verbal Reasoning and/or English test.

Both of these subjects assess a child’s ability to recognise and understand the meanings of a variety of challenging vocabulary words and these are usually not the sorts of words that are taught in school or covered within the Key Stage 2 National Curriculum.

Furthermore, there are endless advantages to helping your child improve their vocabulary as research shows that children who have stronger vocab knowledge significantly outperform their peers in school.

How can I Improve My Child’s 11+ Vocabulary?

There are so many things you can do to improve your child’s vocabulary in preparation for the exam.

Here are some of our favourite tips, tricks and activities for helping your child to quickly pick up the meanings of new words, as well as their awareness and knowledge of synonyms and antonyms.

Encourage your child to be an engaged reader. However, when it comes to reading, it’s not just about getting them to sift through dozens and dozens of books, it’s about encouraging your child to be an engaged and active reader. What does that mean? Encourage them to not just read the books but actually understand what they’re reading, learn about the characters and understand the subtle messages within the story or poem. This is incredibly important for building their comprehension skills.

Become best friends with pen, notebook and highlighter. 😊 This might sound like a silly tip but it’s actually incredibly important for vocabulary building. Whenever your child reads, they should always have a notebook with them and ideally, the notebook should be specifically for writing down the definition, synonyms and antonyms of key vocabulary words as well as words that they do not know the meaning of.

Once they find the word in the book/text, they should write it down in their notebook and also write down its meaning.

Furthermore, they should underline or highlight the word in the story or text so that they can refer back to it in future (if needed).

Read The Cadwaladr Quests. We’re always harping on about this incredible series of books but it’s for a reason. We love The Cadwaladr Quests by SL Ager because it’s simply amazing and was written by an 11+ mum who was preparing her child for the exam.

Each book contains a built in dictionary which makes it incredibly easy for your child to learn the meanings of new words whilst also becoming engaged in a gripping story.

To spruce things up, read the books with your child and also go through the workbooks with them.

Make it fun. Our founder has held several talks where she’s discussed a range of vocabulary-building ideas such as flashcards, Scrabble, Crosswords and Word Searches. You can check out these talks by joining the 11+, SATS, ISEB, GCSE and A-Level group on Facebook.

Communicate. Children pick up vocabulary from the world around them and one of the best ways to improve their vocabulary is to expand the types of words they hear on a daily basis. You can do this quite easy by encouraging them to listen to new words rather than just read them. Some of the best ways to expand their vocabulary are by:

  • Encouraging them to listen to audiobooks. There are dozens available on Youtube and hundreds of age-appropriate ones on Audible.

  • Encourage them to watch the news. Journalists and presenters often use high-level vocabulary words when speaking so it’s great for your child to learn new words by hearing them in the context they’ve been used.

  • Encourage your child to listen to radio broadcasts and political debates. This is incredibly important, especially for children who are preparing for 11+, 12+ and 13+ interviews.

Get Tooled Up. The wonderful Dr Kathryn Weston of Tooled Up Education shares some of the best tips on preparing your child for the 11+ and 12+ exams on her website and in her live talks at some of the country’s top schools.

We highly recommend checking out her website and subscribing to her newsletter for excellent tips not just on helping your child with the 11+ but also on developing their emotional wellbeing and confidence.

Vocabulary FAQs

Do I Have To Pay To Download The 11+ Vocabulary PACK?

No, it’s absolutely free and there is no charge for them.

Is The Pack Printable?

Absolutely. Simply download the pack by clicking the link on this page and print them. It’s straightforward and incredibly simple to do. We’ve created them in pdf form to make things really easy for you.

To save ink, you can print them in black and white but if your child is a visual learner then we’d recommend printing them in colour.

Up-levelling Sentences: KS2 and Year 5 English Tutorial

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As tutors, we often come across tutees that are really bright and hard-working but struggle to write engaging and interesting sentences that capture the heart of the reader (or teacher).

It’s a very common problem and most children at some point will struggle with how to write in a way that’s clear, concise and that also shows off their vocabulary knowledge.

To help with this, I held a free Facebook Live tutorial back in February where I shared some tips on how to write better sentences.

Take a look at the tutorial below:

Quick tips for instantly improving sentences:

  • Swap boring or low-level verbs and adjectives with more advanced synonyms

  • Describe nouns using adjectives

  • Use adverbs where necessary

  • Use fronted adverbials to shape the pace of your story or sentence

  • Include literary devices such as similes, metaphors, personification, alliteration etc.

11+ Prep: Is It Essential To Have A Tutor?

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In our previous blog post, we discussed how to know if your child is smart enough to pass the 11+. It was a great topic and we received sever messages from parents who found it to be useful. Today, we’re looking at a similar topic that was inspired by an email we received from an anxious parent. Take a look at her question below and scroll down to read our advice. As always, we love hearing your feedback so feel free to leave a comment sharing your thoughts below.

“We are currently preparing our son for the 11+ and everyone around us seems to insist that we need to have a tutor for our child. Is this really the case? Our son is bright and capable but we’ve never gone through the school entrance process before and we’re not sure what or who to believe. It feels like everyone has a tutor except for us.”

It would be great to hear your thoughts.

Many thanks, Kate.


This is a great question and one we get asked often. There isn’t necessarily a straightforward answer to this as every child is different and it’s important to factor in your child’s learning style and ability but hopefully some of the points outlined below will help.

To answer your question, it’s not essential to have a tutor when embarking on the 11+ process. There are dozens, if not hundreds of parents whose children have passed without the help of regular tuition.

Generally, if you decide not to hire a tutor, there are a few things you need to consider.

Do you have the skills, time and patience to teach your child yourself? 

There are many parents that hire tutors simply because they don’t have the time to teach their child or because they lack the patience to go through each topic with them thoroughly. These parents tend to be busy professionals who have limited time and find that hiring a tutor can be a helpful way to ensure that their child is learning in a way that they enjoy, without parental pressure. If you’re a very busy parent then I’d recommend hiring a tutor as it will save you a lot of stress in the long run.

If your child doesn’t pass, will you regret not hiring a tutor or are you fine with the outcome regardless of how they do?

This is an important question to ask yourself. If you’re not too fussed about the outcome of your child’s results in the 11+ then it isn’t essential that you hire a tutor for them. If however, you have all your hopes on them winning a place at a top school then it’s worth investing in a few tuition lessons.

Is your child naturally very bright? 

If your child is performing ahead of National 
Curriculum targets then there is a probability that they’ll do well in the exams without needing to have an extensive amount of support. As a rule of thumb, children who are naturally very bright tend to need less support in order to do well in the exams but this isn’t a hard and fast rule. 

Here are some things that all parents should consider when preparing for the exam:

All children, regardless of their ability, need to be familiar with the 11+ exam questions, structure and format. We never recommend that any child goes into the exam without doing any preparation whatsoever.

The exams are tough and are becoming increasingly more competitive so it’s crucial that if you’re not hiring a tutor, you purchase the right tools, materials and resources needed in order to ensure that they are familiar with the exam process. 

Your child will most certainly need to have someone explain the logic behind questions, guide them through how to fill in answer sheets and show them how to strategically answer questions within the time frame given. Timing is one of the most important aspects of the exam so it’s essential to focus on this, especially if you choose not to hire a tutor. 

There are some parents, many in fact, who ensure that their child is heavily prepared for the exam. Such parents book dozens, if not hundreds of hours of tuition lessons and often enough, their child passes. However, once their child starts at their chosen grammar or independent school, they often find themselves struggling to cope with the workload and the complexity of work taught or given. Such children tend to be less intelligent academically and have been pushed extensively which results in them passing the 11+ but struggling once they’re in secondary school.

When embarking on the 11+ process, be honest with yourself about your child’s abilities and their ability to cope if given the opportunity to attend a selective school.

Here are some quick solutions:

✔️ Hire a tutor for a few hours a week

✔️ Hire a tutor for a month or two before their exam 

✔️ Book your child into a mock test or assessment 

Finally, remember that comparison is the thief of joy. By comparing yourself or your child to others, you’ll end up far more stressed and worried, which will only make matters worse. Instead, focus on your child and do what you believe to be best for them. If that’s hiring a tutor for a few weeks each month then that’s great. If it’s teaching them yourself then that’s just as good.


We hope the advice above has been helpful and if you have any questions, leave a comment below and we’ll do our best to help.


10 Recommended Reading Books & Resources For 11+ PREPARATION

Free 11+ Compound Word List For Verbal Reasoning Prep

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At this time of the year, many pupils are preparing for their 11+ and 12+ exams. They’re therefore brushing up on all areas of their English and Verbal Reasoning skills.

In the middle of all the madness and chaos surrounding their revision and preparation, many often forget how important it is to learn compound words.

You’ll often see them included in Verbal Reasoning papers where students are expected to think of a prefix or suffix that begins one word and ends the next.

It can be quite a challenging exercise for those who struggle with such words or have forgotten to revise them.

To help, we’ve compiled a list of 60 popular compound words.

Here are some tips on using the list:

✅ Don't expect your child to memorise every single word and its meaning. Instead, encourage them to read a few compound words every day so that they naturally get into the habit of becoming more familiar with the words.

✅ Make learning fun. You can do this by encouraging your child to draw pictures of the words, write poems that include a few of them or create posters with several of the words. Use felt tips, gel pens and colouring pens to make things even more fun.

✅ Encourage your child to spot compound words when reading. This is a simple but effective way to make learning such words more enjoyable.

Click on the button below to download the list and let us know in the comments section if it’s helpful. 🙂

10 Recommended Story Books & Resources For 11+ Preparation