St. Paul’s is proud to be participating in a project on The Outdoor Classroom in conjunction with partner schools in Portugal, Finland and Slovenia. The project is funded by the European Commission through the Erasmus programme.
Erasmus+ is the EU’s programme to support education, training, youth and sport. With an estimated budget of €26.2 billion for 2021, it provides opportunities for over 4 million participants to study, train, gain experience, and volunteer abroad.
Our motivation for this project is to drastically improve our time spent as teachers teaching the curriculum outside and providing students with learning opportunities in the outdoor spaces. We intend to employ the help of leading experts in the field of outdoor education in order for us to improve our knowledge and the knowledge of our partner schools in this way. We intend to liaise with each partner school in order for us to create best practice exemplars and maximise our outdoor learning environment. The long-term benefits we aim to accomplish from this project is an increased time spent teaching the curriculum outside, which will then in the long-term improve the student’s well-being, health, and wellness.
We also aim to specifically target our early years providers to maximise the usage of outdoor spaces. Our second specific target is the area of STEM education. We believe that being outdoors is a natural stimulant of wonder and curiosity for children.
