Outdoors

We love the outdoors at Ysgol Bryn Collen!!

Wales leads the UK in its development of learning outdoors and the ethos at Ysgol Bryn Collen ensures that we are in the vanguard of experiential learning, of which outdoor learning is such a vital element.
The outdoors is the ideal environment for experiential learning, because it offers unique opportunities to be creative, to move around, to be noisy and to take risks. The outdoors is full of special stimuli such as weather, sounds, smells and textures which can enrich and enhance a child’s learning environment.
Being outdoors enhances all aspects of children’s development: social, physical, creative, cultural and personal. Children with these skills well-developed are better able to learn and to retain that learning. Placing greater emphasis on the use of the outdoor environment as a resource for learning benefits children in so many ways:
• their health and fitness benefit from running, jumping and skipping outside and using toys and equipment that cannot be used inside;
• they can experience nature at first hand - how the weather changes and how plants and animals react to the different seasons;
• problem solving can relate to real experiences such as, how to move logs from one area to another;
• children can experience aspects such as conservation and sustainability at first hand and develop a love of nature.

Our school promotes discovery and independence with a greater emphasis on using the outdoor environment as a resource for children’s learning.