Comment: Positive influence of outdoor lessons for our children

Andrea is the headteacher at Appleton Roebuck Primary School in North Yorkshire. With 112 pupils drawn from local villages, including farming families, she has welcomed a strong partnership with Yorkshire Agricultural Society to help her pupils and staff embrace the school's rural setting.
Andrea Commins, the headteacher of Appleton Roebuck Primary School in North Yorkshire.Andrea Commins, the headteacher of Appleton Roebuck Primary School in North Yorkshire.
Andrea Commins, the headteacher of Appleton Roebuck Primary School in North Yorkshire.

As a small, rural primary school, we actively seek opportunities to work with organisations relevant to our own community. We’ve harvested the rewards of working with the Yorkshire Agricultural Society on a host of rich training and outdoor initiatives which help us incorporate the wider environment into our everyday teaching practice.

We are fortunate to have great outdoor spaces within our school perimeter, and believe that learning should have no limits - four walls can often restrict and curb children’s appetite for learning. The inspiring and exciting experiences we have shared over the past year have enabled us to see how we can bring back new ideas, but visiting the Great Yorkshire Showground and seeing the children working out of the school context has been so powerful.

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Courses for our staff have impacted on their levels of well-being which has then translated into children’s engagement and a love of learning, including raising the profile of writing considerably, which is one of the school priorities.

Andrea Commins, the headteacher of Appleton Roebuck Primary School in North Yorkshire.Andrea Commins, the headteacher of Appleton Roebuck Primary School in North Yorkshire.
Andrea Commins, the headteacher of Appleton Roebuck Primary School in North Yorkshire.

Our children love the outdoors. They have loved getting soil under their fingernails by creating their own vegetable garden, wildlife garden with a pond and an apple orchard. The Yorkshire Agricultural Society delivered a relevant and fun National Apple Day workshop where we learned about sustainability and making good use of the crop.

A visit to Countryside Days gave the children a glimpse of the vital future roles they could play in UK agriculture, while the Great Yorkshire Show offers the chance to experience all things agriculture and the younger children visited the Showground with our Forest Schools teacher to enjoy a day of activities and exploration - an incredibly positive outdoor experience.

Our partnership with the Yorkshire Agricultural Society has a positive impact on so many aspects of our school life. It has enhanced the understanding of our staff and volunteers on how to look beyond the windows for educational inspiration that engages and captures the imagination, and the free training has helped us stretch our tight school budget that bit further.