The Importance of Outdoor Play and Learning

Children have always played outside. It is only in the past few decades (as car traffic increased, as fears about stranger danger rose, and as screens became ubiquitous) that outdoor play has been dramatically curtailed for a generation of British children. Research by organisations including the National Trust and Playing Out has found that today’s children spend significantly less time playing outside than their parents did, with measurable consequences for physical health, mental wellbeing and developmental outcomes. Restoring outdoor play to a central place in children’s lives is not nostalgia – it is a public health imperative.

The EYFS recognises this. All registered providers must provide outdoor play – not as an add-on or a weather-permitting activity, but as an integral part of the daily provision. The statutory guidance is clear: children must have daily opportunities for outdoor play wherever possible, with a balance of outdoor and indoor activities planned for every session. This is a legal requirement, not a recommendation.

Physical Development and Health

The physical benefits of outdoor play are well-documented. Research shows that, compared with children who spend most of their time inside, children who play outdoors regularly:

• are more physically active overall
• have better cardiovascular health
• are less likely to be overweight
• have better vitamin D levels

The Chief Medical Officers’ guidelines recommend that under-5s are physically active for at least three hours every day – a standard almost impossible to meet without substantial outdoor time.

Outdoors, children can move freely in ways that indoor spaces rarely allow: running, jumping, climbing, throwing, digging, rolling, crawling. This kind of vigorous physical activity supports the development of gross motor skills – the large-muscle movements that underpin balance, coordination, spatial awareness and physical confidence.

These skills are foundational for fine motor development, including the pencil control needed for writing, and for the physical confidence that enables children to participate fully in sports and physical activity throughout childhood and beyond.

Cognitive and Scientific Learning

The outdoor environment is the richest learning environment available to young children. Nature provides a constantly changing, multi-sensory laboratory that no indoor setting can replicate: seasons, weather, light, living creatures, growth and decay, the physics of water and sand, the biology of worms and birds. This kind of direct, first-hand experience of the natural world builds scientific thinking, vocabulary, curiosity and a sense of wonder in ways that worksheets and screens simply cannot.

Mathematics is embedded in the outdoor environment: measuring the depth of a puddle, counting the legs on a centipede, comparing the height of two bean plants, sorting leaves by shape and size. Literacy is supported by mark-making in sand or mud, by finding letters in natural materials, by the vocabulary-rich conversations that accompany outdoor exploration. The outdoor environment is not a break from learning – it is one of the most generative learning contexts available to young children.

Risk, Challenge and Resilience

One of the most damaging trends in British childcare has been the progressive removal of challenge from children’s outdoor environments in the name of safety. Well-meaning but excessive risk-aversion has produced play spaces that are sterile, boring and fail to serve children’s developmental needs. The Health and Safety Executive’s own guidance, “Children’s Play and Leisure: Promoting a Balanced Approach” (2012), explicitly states that the goal is not to eliminate risk but to manage it and that preventing all risk of injury denies children the learning opportunities that come from challenge.

Children need to encounter risk (the wobble of a climbing frame, the challenge of a tree to be climbed, the possibility of a fall into mud) in order to develop risk assessment skills, physical confidence and resilience. A child who has never experienced minor falls, scraped knees or the frustration of an outdoor challenge they could not immediately master is ill-prepared for the real demands of the world. Good outdoor provision includes elements of genuine physical challenge, loose parts that can be combined and reconfigured, and adults who supervise intelligently rather than intervening reflexively.

Forest School

Forest School is an educational approach originating in Scandinavia and adopted widely in Britain since the 1990s. In Forest School, children spend regular, sustained sessions in a natural woodland or outdoor environment, engaging in child-led, practical activities under the guidance of a trained Forest School leader. The approach is underpinned by principles of child-led learning, manageable risk, emotional wellbeing and connection with nature.

The evidence base for Forest School outcomes is growing. Research consistently finds that regular Forest School participation improves children’s confidence, independence, motivation, social skills and physical ability. Children who have been resistant to learning in formal settings often respond positively to the Forest School environment. The approach is particularly effective for children with SEND, where the unstructured, sensory-rich outdoor environment can reduce anxiety and increase engagement in ways that indoor provision cannot.

Weather, Clothing and Year-Round Provision

The most common reason given by settings for not providing outdoor play is inclement weather. The Scandinavian approach to this (summarised in the saying “there is no bad weather, only bad clothing”) has strong developmental backing. Children who are appropriately dressed for the weather (waterproofs and wellies for rain, hats and sun cream for heat, layers for cold) can play comfortably outdoors in virtually all conditions. The sensory experience of rain, frost, wind and sunshine is in itself developmentally valuable.

Settings that routinely substitute indoor activities for outdoor play when it is raining are not only failing to meet the spirit of the EYFS requirements – they are depriving children of experiences that build resilience, sensory awareness and physical confidence. Parents can support outdoor provision by ensuring their children come to the setting with suitable clothing for the season, and by maintaining a positive attitude to outdoor play at home, whatever the weather.