Johnston Community Primary School

School: Johnston Community Primary School

Location: Johnston

LA: Pembrokeshire

Approximately 260 pupils on roll.

Links

Outdoor Learning | JohnstonCPSchool (johnstoncommunityprimaryschool.co.uk)

Home | SLO Johnston (johnstonprofessionallearning.co.uk)

Johnston School discuss Outdoor learning as part of Talk Pedagogy

Mathematics and Numeracy Area of Learning and Experience in the outdoors

This case study explores and explains our journey to developing the teaching of Mathematics and Numeracy in Curriculum for Wales using the outdoors to make learning experiences purposeful, engaging and exciting.

Background

Johnston Community School is a single form entry school with around two hundred and sixty children on roll. Around twenty percent of children are in receipt of free school meals and thirty percent are identified as having additional learning needs. The school moved to a new building in January 2016. After an inspection in 2017 the school was judged as requiring improvement.The teaching of mathematics, and particularly mathematics across the curriculum was identified as a recommendation by Estyn. Since September 2019 the school has spent a considerable amount of time developing learning and teaching in mathematics, ensuring that the four purposes form the foundation for a holistic curriculum where learners are provided with authentic contexts for learning.

Developing a vision for learning and teaching

Developing our vision for how we wanted to support our learners to progress towards the four purposes in maths, was a critical part of our journey. We decided to spend the Autumn term unpicking the Mathematics and Numeracy AOLE to create the time and space to really reflect on why, how and what we teach. The school had already travelled a long way, breaking away from the traditional Abacus textbook approach and moving towards a more concrete, pictorial, abstract approach where teachers plan a variety of activities based on the needs of the learners. Whilst this is significant and important, we knew that we hadn’t yet achieved the shift in culture where we started to think more about the ‘why’ we teach facets of maths and numeracy and how we present learning opportunities to children. We also reflected that we were yet to explore strategies for embracing ‘learner voice’ in mathematics and numeracy in a way that we had in other Areas as part of our holistic curriculum. Therefore, we set out to achieve a culture shift where staff reflected on the learning and teaching, providing rich opportunities set in a relevant context that learners could understand, explore, develop and discuss.

We began to reflect on the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of the learning and started to explore ideas for learning and teaching in real-life contexts using the environment around us. The Covid-19 pandemic gave added momentum as we thought more about how we could take learning outside. We used asymmetric Friday afternoons to discuss the pedagogies that we could use in the outdoors. We wanted to develop authentic outdoor learning experiences. The school was extremely lucky to have been donated a nine-acre field with access via a gate on the back of the playground. Despite the fact that the school had had access to this field since 2017, the gate had barely been opened and the area was completely unused as a learning environment.

‘Opening the gate’ provided us with opportunities to explore new pedagogical approaches, we didn’t really know where things were going to go, but we started with key questions underpinning our educational philosophy:

1. How can we create opportunities for all learners to work collaboratively to explore concepts?

2. How do we plan for the application of skills in a real-life context?

3. Is our learning environment engaging and exciting?

4. How do we encourage and enable all learners to make connections between different concepts?

Refining approaches to learning and teaching

As we explored ideas, we settled on a number of actions that we would like to use as a catalyst:

we wanted to create a maths area outside our classrooms, equipped with natural materials and maths resources.
investment in resources and equipment
opportunities for learners to explore mathematical challenges and ideas outside as frequently as possible
opportunities for learners to guide the learning in authentic contexts.

As teachers planned and engaged with these activities, we wanted learning to focus on the skills integral to the four purposes allowing opportunities for creativity and innovation; critical thinking and problem solving; personal effectiveness and planning and organising. These skills are central to supporting learners to progress towards the four purposes. We had already spent some time considering the characteristics of the four purposes and how they would be the starting point for our decisions when planning the learning experiences. This made us realise how experiences in maths and numeracy supported the development of characteristics within each of the four purposes, not just ambitious capable learners.

Almost immediately, the work in maths gained momentum as the innovation of teaching approaches began to build, and the success was apparent as learners flourished during outdoor activities. It became apparent to our staff that the outdoors could be an inspiring and exciting environment for developing learning experiences. These included: -

working in groups,
exploring ideas through discussion without worrying that they might make mistakes,
developing a variety of approaches for problem solving by undertaking investigation and then reflecting on what they had learnt.

A buzz developed in staff meetings where, as part of our professional learning, staff openly shared ideas in a non-threatening environment. We did this every week, focusing on the skills that would support learners to progress towards the four purposes. We allowed time to discuss changes we wanted to make to improve the outdoor environment as part of the ongoing process of evaluation.

At the same time, we worked with both Pembrokeshire Coast National Parks and Darwin Science to provide opportunities for weekly professional learning. Two national park rangers worked with groups of learners throughout the day. During these activities, they supported us with resources, ideas and various projects. For example, when we were explaining to the ranger that we were going to be learning about shape, he suggested mowing shapes into the field and guided us in other creative ways.

Trialing and evaluating new activities and integrating real-life learning experiences

We set ourselves the objective of continually asking, ‘what are our learners learning and why?’

Below are a few examples of the learning which enabled our learners to progress towards the four purposes through developing the skills integral to the four purposes.

Here some of our learners have planted trees in the orchard. They started asking, ’How long will it take for the tree to grow?‘ 'Will it be bigger than me by the time I leave school?’ As a result of these questions, we started to investigate how many years it would take for a tree to grow if it grew by 30cm per year. This led to questions about different types of trees and their growth rate, developing learners’ understanding of ecology.

We also started to consider concepts such as how many trees are required to provide oxygen for one human. This fascinated learners and energised them to plan for more planting. To support learners to understand why deforestation occurs, we explored problems linked to an Nrich resource about how timber can be sold for profit.

An example of the authentic learning that developed is demonstrated by our toad discovery! After learning about growth rates of trees, we planted two oak trees near the entrance to the field and discovered a hibernating toad. Our learners were fascinated that they had discovered the creature and as a result, we spent our science and technology sessions the following week creating amphibian hibernation areas.

The fascination with trees continued as, during a ’learner voice’ session, the learners expressed an interest in discovering the age of different trees and making comparisons with their own lifetimes. Here, learners worked in groups, problem solving and developing their planning and organising skills to engage with the enquiry. They were eager to use their maths skills and vocabulary to describe the circumference of the different trees and estimate the ages. The ‘buzz’ of learning was so strong during this Friday morning task that the learners really didn’t want to go home!

Learners were also eager to calculate the heights of trees. This required them to use their knowledge of angles and their critical thinking skills to solve challenging problems. We even touched upon trigonometry.

Logical reasoning and problem solving also developed nearer the classroom. In this example, the learners are solving, sharing and creating magic squares and algebraic problems. They learned the importance of thinking carefully when deciding upon a starting point during reasoning problems. We aim to have a group using our outside area (the area closest to school) every day to enrich learning and provide opportunities for learners to take the lead in their own learning.

The authentic contexts continued to develop as we had fencing erected to establish new growing areas.

Learners interviewed volunteers asking them about the skills that they were using as they planned for and built the fences. Then, learners used their own problem solving skills to measure and calculate the area and perimeter of different parts of the field. Many enjoyed comparing their calculations with those of the adult volunteers!

After discussion and advice with the National Parks’ ranger, it was decided that we needed sheep as a cost effective way of managing the growth of the grass. This led to the establishment of a wild meadow. Here, year six learners are measuring different lengths of rope and calculating the area that would be required for a tethered sheep to graze happily!

New learning experiences

How often do we assume learners’ knowledge only to discover that they are unsure about what they are learning?

During a lesson about rationing, it became apparent that the learners had no previous experience of ‘preserves’ or how they were made.

We grasped the opportunity to gather blackberries and make jam! The learners solved problems involving ratio and proportion to ensure that they used the correct quantities of ingredients. This developed weighing skills, group work, proportional reasoning as well as motivating learners to taste the jam they had produced.

Deeper understanding of negative numbers

Understanding key concepts such as negative numbers are vitally important. Here, year five learners investigated patterns with negative numbers, using stones to create a negative number line. This required them to physically move up and down the number line, using the concrete resources as they explained their understanding.

Planning and organising when measuring angles

As part of the learners’ desire to understand more about different trees they investigated the angles of branches. This required learners to plan their starting point, think about how to best to access the trees safely and consider how to work efficiently together . Understanding where to place the protractor is often something that many learners find challenging, but this task supported them to develop this understanding.

How often do we teach a skill, such as profit and loss, without providing a context that learners can really understand?

Year four learners have responsibly looked after six chickens, ensuring that they are safe and healthy. They have sold the eggs in the staff room, pricing them so that they can make a profit after purchasing chicken feed. Profits were then distributed amongst the class. The experience provided an opportunity for learning many different skills and we had a lot of learners applying to become the chicken managers!

We had maps created of our school which provided numerous opportunities for our learners to set challenges for their friends developing their map reading, orientation and measuring skills.

As well as our more structured learning sessions, we have also started to provide learners with challenges for them to enjoy as part of break times. This supported our learners to be curious and inquisitive given the space to explore ideas during unstructured parts of the school day. We have provided learners with broad and open challenges - it is amazing to hear them discuss and debate;

the equipment they need
how they plan to collect and categorise information
and how to solve problems.

As part of our ambition to use natural, recyclable materials, we provided learners with slates to record their workings and ideas.

Evaluation of activities

The following is a brief outline of the impact on learning and teaching:

increased learner enjoyment and engagement in both the outdoor and indoor learning environment
change in learners’ attitudes to working together and learning in mathematics
learners understand the usefulness of maths in their daily lives
improving confidence in our learners’ communication skills
our teaching is more creative and our teachers value the importance of building our learners’ creativity and curiosity.
our learners are developing innovative approaches when problem solving
increasing levels of resilience and independence when learning maths and numeracy

All our teachers have reported that during indoor learning sessions, learners are increasingly willing to articulate and describe their understanding, in the same way that they might do as part of a problem solving activity at the bottom of the field!

Learner progress

Teacher assessment shows that most learners made strong progress and in many cases, accelerated progress. Evidence for the year 5 class who first started using the outdoors shows that 50% of learners achieved 112+ in the standardised personalised assessments and nearly all learners improved their scores.

Learner voice

As the project progressed, we found that the learners developed stronger and stronger voices about how they liked to learn and what they liked to learn about. For example, in November we planned a whole school oracy week where classes were presented with the challenge of planning and preparing a video of their choice. Learners in year four decided that they would like to create a video documenting some of the work that they had developed outside.

The video demonstrates how the authentic contexts for learning have excited learners with many of them describing how being outside makes them feel calm and purposeful. This reinforced our understanding of the importance of an integrated approach to curriculum design.

Curriculum design and next steps

Our journey in developing the learning and teaching of mathematics and numeracy through increasing opportunities for outdoor learning experiences has been an extremely rewarding and positive one. Many of the developments have occurred naturally, as our staff have collaborated and reflected to improve the learning environment for all learners.

As we move forward, we will maintain and develop our outdoor learning environment. We will plan experiences that support learning across all Areas, further enhancing the holistic approach to curriculum design. For example, we have begun to work with learners to develop outside areas for theatre and story-telling. We are also going to continue to develop our learners’ understanding of the current climate crisis, using our curriculum to help learners feel part of a larger, global effort. We hope that this project will be one that they can be proud of and which they can return to and revisit in the future.

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