Ringwood Heights Primary School is located in Ringwood, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, and they share their Outdoor Classroom Day story with us here.

Ringwood Heights Primary School is a school of 300 students. Our school was built in 1965 on an old pine plantation and today is bordered by pines and gums, and every morning you hear the songs of the Kookaburra and other native birds.  Our site has a native sanctuary, kitchen garden, community garden with BBQ facilities and extensive outdoor play and learning areas including an oval, amphitheatre and their own cross country running track. Through our Inquiry Curriculum, students are able to utilise the outdoors often. Currently our students are engaged with several artists in residence focussing on ephemeral art, nest building and mosaic.

Outdoor Learning and Play

Our school values are Creativity, Respect, Responsibility, Friendship and Teamwork. These values are reflected in all play and learning activities. The children enjoy “The Forest” area where they build cubbies from natural materials including specially cut tree logs, twigs and swept pine needles. The children can be found amongst the trees in the amphitheatre or gathered together around tables or playing sport on the oval or under the ‘Big Top’, a large expansive sun shaded area. The outdoor is utilised frequently across the day and the school’s Foundation students have a connected outdoor learning space to their classrooms where they can investigate through play using water, the outdoor decks, large chalkboards or tending to the vegetable and succulent gardens.

Celebrating Outdoor Classroom Day meant we could promote the wonderful play and learning spaces at our school, remind us about the importance and benefits of being outdoors and utilising these natural resources.  The students tell us that what they love about their school is the environment, the space and the trees. Cubbies dominate as the play of choice and if they get dirty the shoes can come off at the door. The socialisation, problem solving and resources that are traded (gems for logs) are all lessons learnt through collaboration and negotiated through the children themselves. The teachers are observers and the students are the drivers in utilising space. Outdoor Classroom Day is an opportunity to spotlight their fabulous school environment and extend learning opportunities that might complement and be included in students’ play.

Lessons Taken Outdoors

Some of the topics and learning activities shared with students on Outdoor Classroom Day 2018:

• Foundation students worked in their playground and outdoor classroom attached to their classrooms to investigate living things and tend to their garden boxes
• Year 1/2 students rotated through four activities, landscape art from their decks, outdoor games and story writing accessing the amphitheatre, the use of ipads included photos for inspiration
• Year 3/4 students were inspired to write poetry, focussed on erosion and stabilised a terraced area of the school and tended the kitchen garden
• Year 5/6 students investigated biodiversity and calculated ratio of species within a mini habitat

The kitchen garden and the Foundation outdoor areas are spaces that are embedded in our curriculum planning. In addition each classroom has a covered decking area directly accessible to the classroom. The design of the recently completed modular building has considered the decking as an important element. This building also has expansive glass and set in an elevated position so that the trees are visible and an integral element in setting the learning tone. Whilst the students access the outdoors frequently the schedule for all classes and all students working in the outdoors together across the day was an added highlight.

We are really excited to continue to maximise the opportunity of using Outdoor Classroom Day to spotlight the benefits of learning in the natural environment in the future. It’s a day in which the whole school is able to come together in a united way to appreciate, celebrate and explore the natural environment.

The Outdoor Classroom Day Team would like to thank Ringwood Heights Primary School for sharing their story with us.

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