Conference Information

Student Outcomes and Natural Schooling has been published by Plymouth University and is now available for download.  

Thank you for attending Lessons from Near and Far.

All presentations and poster from the conference are now available -click here.

 

The Conference Team

———————————————————————

A series of short video clips were recorded on Periscope throughout the day, these can be found on the Natural Connections Demonstration Project YouTube channel. These are quite limited so please send us more if you have them.

NCDP YouTube Channel

Here’s a few photos of the event taken by the events team at UEL;

 

——————————————————————————————————–

Rationale

Research in the field of outdoor learning has often been fragmented and relatively small scale, leading to significant challenges for both policy development and strategic long term research. However several recent large scale initiatives both here and overseas offer the opportunity to learn from national and international evidence of effective research practice informing policy and, policy informing research practice.

Learning from these initiatives is particularly relevant in helping us to better understand the contribution of outdoor learning to the development of characteristics in children that are associated with improved attainment, and their health and wellbeing.

Aims and Objectives

A consortium of partners[1], led by Plymouth University and Natural England, are hosting a conference that brings together key players from the research and policy communities:

• to provide a forum for learning from international research and policy
• to help inform policy directions in particular the potential for learning in natural environments to develop characteristics that are precursors to attainment and enhanced employability.
• to identify shared research priorities that will tackle the key challenges for policy development both nationally and internationally.

This will be achieved by:

• considering recent evidence of change in the scale and nature of children’s use of, and access to, the natural environment in relation to key social and economic factors and the challenges that presents.
• reviewing the impact of recent international school-based outdoor learning initiatives, in order to shape how delivery and evaluation of programmes might be developed to better support policy and practice. Cases include the partners in an Economic and Social Research Council International Partnership Network and an open call for additional insights to this issue from the academic community.
• bringing together research and policy communities specifically to:

1. identify and discuss lessons from the current evidence-based knowledge in supporting a productive exchange between policy and research in outdoor learning.
2. highlight gaps in our understanding of the evidence base
3. develop pathways to impact from the current state of play.

Audience

The conference is aimed at:

• Policy makers: civil servants or key policy makers from government departments, including Departments of Education, Health, Defra and DCMS.
• Strategic service providers: including government agencies, public bodies and the voluntary sector across a range of related interests including health, education, urban planning and volunteering.
• Educational, social care and health sectors: organisations representing education and health and wellbeing delivery
• Research community: cross- disciplinary interest in learning in natural environments.
• Sector community: local and national delivery organisations who promote large scale health and learning in natural environment programmes.

[1]University of East London, Natural England, the UK based Strategic Research Group for Learning in Natural Environments (chaired by Natural England), Council for Learning Outside the Classroom. ESRC International Partnership funding and input from partners in that award: Understanding educational and wellbeing implications of learning outside the classroom through cross-national collaboration, UEL’s in-kind contributions, such as the venue, Plymouth University International Development Funds and Natural England’s funding of the report consultancy contribute to this conference.