Outdoor Classroom Day is global movement encouraging every school to make getting outdoors – to learn, play and explore – part of every child’s every day.
This campaign is a huge part of what Outdoor People does. I am seconded for part of every week as the Global Partnerships Director for Semble (the NGO that lead the campaign nationally) and the rest of the Outdoor People team provide capacity to support research, design and communications as and when needed. It’s a campaign we are very proud to support, and it forms the ‘Think Global’ part of our ‘Think Global Act Local’ mission.
Last week I was interviewed by a Swedish newspaper, asking me about my role and how the campaign has grown, and I thought I’d share part of that interview to explain why we are so passionate about this movement, and what’s next for Outdoor People around getting schools outdoors.
I’ve been the Global Director for Outdoor Classroom Day since early 2015, when Semble (then called Project Dirt) secured funding to increase the reach of the campaign beyond the UK, helping us fund the appointment of a great team to grow the movement.
I have been committed to the cause of getting children outdoors for over 20 years. I was previously a primary school teacher, and later was Director of Play England, who led the Playday campaign amongst other large programmes. In 2014 I set up this non-profit, Outdoor People, to help organisations get children and families outdoors more as well as directly taking children and their families from East London camping, and leading Wild Walks, adventures for children to take their parents on.
Outdoor People’s purpose is quite simply to make it easy for children and families to get outdoors, and what better way is there than getting every school in the world to make it clear to parents and the wider community that it is critical for children to be outdoors every day?
Find out more and sign up:
Global Outdoor Classroom Day campaign: https://outdoorclassroomday.com/
Photo Credit: Cath Prisk/ Kender Primary School in South London
