Rich Learning Opportunities

Outdoor provision

Diane Rich is a regular speaker at conferences all over the UK. Themes from conference keynote presentations include many issues relating to outdoor play.

‘Creativity in children’s outdoor worlds’
‘Setting up outdoor environments: issues and challenges’
‘The value of outdoor provision for children’
‘Outdoor environments and inclusion’

Sometimes she can be persuaded to run seminar or workshop sessions based on the above presentation themes.

Diane visits settings all over the UK giving support, advice and consultancy services at a range of different levels on developing outdoor provision and practice.

On behalf of Early Education Diane commissioned and edited the book by Margaret Edgington The Great Outdoors: developing children’s learning through outdoor provision (2003, Early Education: London)

Rich Learning Opportunities and Learning Through Landscapes
Diane supports the work of the charity Learning Through Landscapes in a variety of ways. In 2005 she will be speaking at the Learning Through Landscapes National Conference. In 2004 she represented Learning Through Landscapes, offering support, advice and consultancy services to new and amalgamating Children’s Centres. In 2003 and 2004 she was invited to chair a group of consultants and early years associations and support them in agreeing and developing a Learning Through Landscapes Vision and Values statement on outdoor provision for children.

Rich Learning Opportunities endorses the Vision and Values Statement of Learning Through Landscapes. click here

An outdoor provision survey

In 2003 Diane Rich initiated, designed and set up a national survey to review outdoor provision in the UK, while working for Early Education. The aim of her survey was to:

raise awareness of the importance of high quality outdoor experiences for children
gain a picture of the current situation regarding outdoor provision
identify issues affecting provider’s ability to deliver high quality outdoor play
identify ways to provide effective support for the early years sector (children from birth to 8 years of age)

Diane received over 800 returned questionnaires. Findings have been analysed by Learning Through Landscapes. The research pages of the Learning Through Landscapes website give a fuller report on findings. An initial brief summary finds that:

98.5% of respondents reported that outdoor play was essential or important.
Many of those stating that it was important qualified their response by stating that although they felt that outdoor provision it was essential for children, they could not identify as essential in the survey, as their setting had no direct access to outdoor provision.
Only 3 respondents stated that it was not very important.
Physical development was identified as an important feature of outdoor provision, with little reference to other aspects of children’s learning and development.
75% of respondents had direct access to outdoor provision
Interpretations of ‘direct access’ varied
Access, space and facilities are far from ideal for many early years providers.


	Diane Rich