RECAP Guest Blog: Reimagining Outdoor Learning
- Lucie Wheeler
- Jul 30
- 3 min read
Bekah Gear is a senior lecturer and practitioner‑researcher whose work sits at the intersection of both children’s agency and practitioner agency. She is passionate about research that grows from real practice, which values the everyday decisions, dilemmas, and possibilities that shape children and young people's experiences. Her work champions practitioners as researchers and positions practice as a powerful driver of meaningful research and change.
Independence, curiosity and childled learning are often described as cornerstones of
best practice within early childhood practice. Yet, sometimes when we pause and
look closely at our children’s outdoor experiences, we see how easily these
principles can be constrained by adult routines, riskaverse language and the way
environments are organised.
The Outdoor Agency Toolkit, developed through a ClosetoPractice (CtP) (BERA
2018) inquiry at Nottingham Trent University, was created to help practitioners,
leaders and childminders rethink their outdoor provision. While it is underpinned by
research and theory, its strength lies in being practical, adaptable and rooted in our
children’s lived experiences.
Keeping Experience at the Forefront
One of the most important reminders the toolkit offers is that children are not
unequally able but unequally experienced. Their hesitations outdoors, whether that
be avoiding climbing, messy play or certain equipment, are certainly not deficits, but
reflections of the experiences and messages they have absorbed at home and in
early childhood settings.
By keeping experience at the forefront of our practice, we can respond with empathy,
scaffold confidence and gradually widen opportunities. The toolkit provides tools to
help practitioners notice these patterns and plan responsively, ensuring outdoor
provision honours the diverse backgrounds children bring with them.
Practical Tools for Everyday Use
The toolkit is designed for immediate application across different contexts, from large
nurseries to small childminding or even home environments. It includes:
PhotoVoice Tools – giving children cameras to capture what they value or
avoid outdoors, helping practitioners see the environment through children’s
eyes.
RiskPositive Practice Pack – language prompts that reframe risk as part of
learning, encouraging children to assess and manage challenge rather than
avoid it.
Adult Role Cards – supporting practitioners to adopt roles such as facilitator,
colearner, observer and risk supporter.
Environmental Enhancers – practical ideas for making spaces choicerich,
openended, flexible and designed for independence.
Home–School Alignment Materials – helping families understand the
importance of independence and manageable risk, reducing mixed messages
for children.
These resources are not prescriptive checklists but reflective lenses, encouraging
practitioners to adapt them to their own settings and revisit them over time.
Bridging Policy and Practice
Recent revisions to the EYFS Framework (DfE, 2024) and Development Matters
(DfE, 2023) now make no explicit reference to agency. This risks a disconnect
between policy and practice, narrowing provision towards outcomes and compliance
rather than autonomy and exploration.
The toolkit aims to help practitioners bridge this gap by keeping the lived
experiences of children experiences at the centre. It offers a way to reclaim agency
as a lived entitlement, ensuring that outdoor spaces remain places of confidence,
independence and possibility, even when policy language is silent.
For practitioners in nursery and school settings, the toolkit strengthens reflective
practice by encouraging them to pause, step back, observe and notice the subtle
messages their language and routines may be sending. For childminders, who often
balance intimate homebased environments with outdoor play, it offers practical
strategies to celebrate independence, encourage manageable risk and create
spaces where children’s voices shape their experiences.
Grounded in ClosetoPractice research, the toolkit ultimately bridges theory and
everyday action, making research meaningful and accessible for all professionals.
Most importantly, it supports a culture of agency, gently reminding us that children
flourish when we trust them to take risks, make choices and influence their
environment.
A Call to early childhood practitioners
Outdoor spaces are not inherently liberating; they become liberating when adults
adopt a stance of trust, curiosity and responsiveness. The Outdoor Agency Toolkit is
an invitation:
to listen more closely,
to step back more often,
and to trust more deeply in children’s capabilities.
By keeping experience at the forefront of what we do, and by recognising that
children are differently experienced rather than differently able, we can ensure that
every child’s outdoor journey is one of confidence, independence and agency.
The toolkit is freely available to download via Nottingham Trent University.
sciences/working-with-nottingham-institute-of-education/research-
degrees/reimagining-outdoor-learning
Rebekah Gear
Senior Lecturer at Nottingham Trent University
References
1. BERA, 2018. Close to practice educational research: A BERA statement. London:
British Educational Research Association. Available at:
15 April 2026].
2. Department for Education, 2023. Development matters. Available at:
April 2026].
3. Department for Education, 2024. Statutory framework for the early years foundation
stage: Setting the standards for learning, development and care for children from
birth to five. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-
foundation-stage-framework--2 [Accessed 15 April 2026].
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