Active Learning | Junior School Outdoor Classroom Day

Students come first when the College:

• Values awareness of the natural world and its resources.
• Recognises that we gain knowledge and understanding of the world by questioning and actively solving problems.

“Academic research shows that active play is the natural and primary way that children learn."

- Sir Ken Robinson | leading expert in education, creativity, and human development

Our annual Outdoor Classroom Day took place in Junior School this week, a global event to inspire outdoor learning and play, and an opportunity for us all to consider some of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals as part of our DCI Sustainability Pledges. Lessons learned outdoors, whether math, science or language, often stay with us for life. Being outdoors helps children to focus, boosts creativity and imagination, and can simply be more fun! Activities outdoors were designed to develop your child’s social and teamwork skills, and enhance their problem solving and creativity. Our wonderful JS staff team led them through their explorations using highly engaging lessons, including sustainable arts and crafts on the natural world around us in the picnic area, practicing singing of the Riawanna song in music using the incredible acoustics outside JS reception, extremely creative and student-led Mandarin lessons using the climbing and swing frames in the playpark to peer-assess language skills, practicing voice-projection and public-speaking in the amphitheater, digging for ‘fossils’ in the sandpit and measuring the Titanic! Some of our Year 7, 8 and 9 student-leaders also tried their hand at being teachers, designing exciting and super-fun obstacle courses on the astroturf for our Year 3’s to practice using active verbs! They will be extending their leadership skills by coordinating our Senior School Outdoor Classroom Day in May as part of their Creative Curriculum Week. We were blessed with fantastic weather and everyone had a creative, active and fun-filled learning experience in the great outdoors!

Mrs Evelyn Anderson, Director of Active Learning (WC) and Mr Rajan Chana, Sustainability Lead (JS)