'Learning beyond the classroom walls'

The project, 'Learning beyond the classroom walls' was planned to enthuse teachers and pupils more about the curriculum and the learning of skills by engaging them in contexts beyond the restrains of the classroom. The idea was to enable the curriculum to be more engaging to all pupils despite their ability or background. The idea grew from the UK school taking on the forest school initiative and training a practitioner within the field of this. It was important in our school to allow this idea to grow and gain more ideas and experience through training in other partner schools. We hoped to focus on the attainment in the basic skills in maths, science and literacy but in fact the project reached many more areas than that. It was hoped that when planned and implemented well, learning outside the classroom could support significantly to raising standards and improving pupils' personal, social and emotional development. Through new initiatives shared by partner schools, linking the outdoor experiences as stimuli was hoped to improve the quality of the pupils work, understanding and enjoyment of learning. Originally there were 8 partners in the project although Denmark was not approved and so that left 7; UK, Belgium, Spain (Tenerife) Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania and Italy. It was apparent that the partners were from differing areas and were from different economical and social backgrounds. The opportunities for outdoor learning differed at the beginning of the project which was down to the location of the school and the vision of what outdoor learning entailed. Some only had a school yard which was thought to be limiting when in fact this was just the starting point. There were 3 transnational meetings, one at the beginning to plan and prepare the project and meet partners and allow expectations of the project to be discussed and agreed. One was in the middle held to assess the progress of the project and to plan the remaining activities and trainings following the application. This gave us chance to review the positive aspects of the project and come up with ways forward to completing the project as planned from the application. Each partner school hosted a training event although the original time scale and order of these was changed at the beginning of the project. This was due to many factors including holidays, climate and school commitments.The training was effectively planned using the application as a starting point although some activities were adapted for various reasons which can be seen later in the report. Some activities were adapted to pre-school to be useful for Lithuania but also for the other partners who also have pre-school within their establishments.