Learning need not take place solely within educational buildings. Outdoor time often provides the most memorable learning experiences and helps children to make sense of the world around them by putting their learning into a meaningful context.

Learning outside and beyond the classroom

Children at Thames are given the chance to become young explorers of the great outdoors at a number of locations such as Cobble Hey Farm, Stannah Country Park, Beacon Fell, Tockholes Plantation and Darwen Moor. These trips help to support the development of healthy and active lifestyles by offering our children opportunities for physical activity, freedom and movement, and promoting a sense of well-being.

Thames’ Outdoor Education programme also supports children’s problem-solving skills and nurtures their creativity, as well as providing rich opportunities for their developing imagination, inventiveness and resourcefulness. During our time outdoors, we regularly see the enjoyment and sense of wonder and excitement that is generated when the children actively engage with their environment. 

Our children get the opportunity to explore hidden ruins, explore reservoirs, moorland walking, go berry picking, geocaching, participate in team building activities and much more. During our adventures we also follow the National Trust’s 50 ultimate activities to do before you’re 11 ¾, here are some of the activities that we cover; Build a den, climb a huge hill, skim a stone and make friends with a bug.

Follow the link below to see the full list of 50 activities;

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/50-things-to-do-before-youre-11-activity-list

Our Outdoor Education Visits

Reception and Y1 visit Stannah Country Park, providing an introduction to building a home for an animal, naming trees and identifying evergreen and deciduous trees, and making friends with a bug and a tree.

Year 2 will visit Beacon Fell in early Autumn, where they will be building a shelter, making tools and picking blackberries and bilberries, like people living in the Stone Age. They continue to build their knowledge of evergreen and deciduous trees, wild plants and identifying some common birds. 

Year 3 will visit Beacon Fell where they will focus on the sculptures and create some of their own art in nature. Look for evidence of wild animals and explore the landscape.

Year 4 will learn to use a compass and read a map whilst on an orienteering course on Beacon Fell. Continue to develop their den building skills. 

Year 5 visit moorland, in the Autumn Term, to experience the countryside the poem The Highwayman will have ridden through. They will continue to develop their map reading and compass skills whilst walking to the Victorian tower, Jubilee Tower on Darwen Moor. The children will also consider the human impact on the wild moor, both the positive and the negative. 

Year 6 plan a route using their newly learned mapping skills and then walk the route they have planned. This will be in the Tockholes Plantation No 3 and take in a reservoir which feeds into the water system for Manchester.

Beach School

Here at Thames we are lucky to have miles of Blackpool and Fylde coastline right on our doorstep. This coastline is an amazing resource and provides a wealth of learning and development benefits for children. In 2016 Thames became the first Beach School in the Blackpool South locality. Having our own dedicated Beach School Teacher has enabled our children to experience Beach School and provided them with a wide variety of experiences without the confines of the classroom.

Beach Schools are a way of giving children the opportunity to learn and develop in a natural environment, sparking their intrinsic motivations to explore, create and be curious about the world around them. Beach Schools provide an opportunity for holistic development for young children, giving them good foundations for the rest of their life. Children are able to run free on the beach, explore their local environment and habitats, build dens and shelters, light fires to toast marshmallows, draw and create in the sand, while developing a love of the outdoors, building self-confidence and self-esteem, teamwork and problem solving skills. Children who struggle with the confines of the classroom and its rigid structure thrive in the Beach School sessions as the freedom of the outdoors allows them to be themselves.