Outdoor play declines in move from early years to school

The research, which was carried out by a team from the University of Plymouth, involved recording children’s conversations and play at early year settings and when they started school.

Each child was fitted with a recording device and found that while more than two-thirds of recordings took place outside in their early years settings, this dropped to less than a third when they started school.

In response to the finding, the ESRC is now urging primary schools to offer children more opportunities to play outside.

It said that outdoor lessons and free play help children to learn independently and that teachers need to have the confidence to tailor the National Curriculum to include more outdoor sessions.

Lead researcher Sue Waite, who is also working with 200 schools in the South West of England to encourage outdoor lessons, said: “Outdoor learning had a different quality from the teacher-led lessons that took place in the classroom.

"Outdoor spaces offer opportunities for children to be more creative, inquiring and socially skilled, as they can pursue their own lines of interest and talk together.

“In classrooms, dominated by specific learning outcomes and teachers talking, it's very easy for learning to become something that is spoon-fed."