School grounds as a classroom for curriculum learning: a secondary school case study

Maths: trees and statistical learning

School grounds provide hands-on statistical learning experiences. Anne, a Maths teacher at the school, explains how Year 8s learned about grouped frequency tables through measuring trees in the grounds.

“I took the students to measure the heights of trees planted around our new wetland area. These saplings had been planted by pupils in two batches about two years apart, so the plan was to compare the heights of the older ones with the newer ones. The older ones were supposed to have plastic protectors, so the idea was that we could use these to distinguish them from the newer ones. Of course, in practice it wasn't as easy as that - some tubes had gone missing. But this led to useful discussions later about outliers in the data and possible causes.” 

 

Image

In the following lesson, pupils collated the results in grouped frequency tables and used the data to draw graphs.  Pupils used the same scale for each graph so they could compare them. Fewer of the smaller trees were recorded during the survey, which Anne predicts may have been because some were so small they were hidden in the long grass. However, the graphs did show the modal group for the older trees was a greater height, so students found clear evidence that the trees were growing! 

Science: learning sampling techniques through investigations on school grounds

Ian, the curriculum leader for Chemistry in the Science department, uses the school grounds for two major projects – one in Year 9 and one in Year 12.

The Year 12 project is for the practical assessment for A-Level, based on sampling and ecology. Students pick a biotic factor (living things in an ecosystem, such as animals and plants) and an abiotic factor (non-living things in an ecosystem, such as soil or water) in the school grounds and look at the relationship between them. The students lead this, planning their investigation and gathering information from the school site for their projects.

For the Year 9 project, the department changed the curriculum to bring in a single Biology investigation over an extended period. 

“We’ve developed a six-week programme where students head outside to learn about sampling techniques. Students sample the undisturbed wildflower area of the grounds, and then compare it to a heavily used area of their choosing, to look at the difference between undisturbed and used areas. Ultimately, our plan is to start collecting that data so we can see how the biodiversity of the undisturbed wetland has changed over time. It will be great to have this data that pupils can use so we can create graphs and look at areas of the curriculum like percentage improvement.”

Geography: bringing theory to life

Mark, a teacher in the Geography department, outlines how the department have been using the school grounds to bring geography to life, showing theories and global phenomena on a local scale. “Going outside opens conversations with students about their local area, encouraging them to think about the relationship between different parts of the ecosystem and the impact that we as humans have on it," says Mark. "By starting on the school site, we can then expand it out to the rainforest and Arctic ecosystems, showing that it’s just the same but on a bigger scale.”

Seeing concepts in real life is also helpful in prompting discussion into why things may not always match the patterns learned about inside the classroom. “Often, things we have talked about in the classroom aren’t happening exactly as the textbook says. ‘Why doesn’t it fit the pattern we’d expect?’ is a really useful conversation to have with students, particularly with GCSE and A-Level students. We can talk about the reasons for this and explore it together”.

As well as enhancing learning experiences, the department have found using school grounds to often be a more practical and accessible way of delivering the curriculum.

“In the past we have used the woods on the other side of Bakewell, but we have recently started to use the school site instead to do some fieldwork. This has many benefits – it’s hugely practical in terms of time and cost, it’s an area all our students are familiar with, and allows students to engage with their grounds in a different way and nurtures their care for their environment.

Using data collected on the school site

Using real world, relatable data provides a much more powerful learning experience than using a pretend dataset, as staff can point to real examples of where the data shows the school site has changed.

In Maths at Lady Manners, the hope is to add to the data collected from the biodiversity sampling and see how this changes over time. Similarly in Science, collecting lots of data over a period of time becomes useful as lessons can be used to start to identify trends. For some of the lower years, staff may ‘massage’ some of the data to make it easier to work with and plot on graphs, but for the older years, ‘noisy data’ is very useful to start introducing concepts such as lines of best fit. 

Creating a bank of real data collected over time from the school site provides powerful learning opportunities for students across subjects. The National Education Nature Park programme is an ideal way to start doing this, as all of the data you and your students collect through the programme will be publicly available to study in the future. By taking part, you’ll help create and have access to records of habitat and biodiversity change on both your own site and all other schools, colleges and nurseries involved in the Nature Park programme, providing a real, accessible and important dataset to help deliver curriculum learning.

Image

Looking ahead: ambitions for the future

Lady Manners have lots of plans to be ambitious in embedding climate and nature across the curriculum and continue to use the school grounds to help with its delivery. The Science department would love to introduce a project that involves getting outside into the school grounds for each year group, each adding to the datasets collected by previous years.

Staff are keen to collaborate on teaching about climate and nature between subjects where there is crossover in the curriculum, such as greenhouse gases and climate change in Year 8 Geography and Science. By joining up and using shared language between departments, it is hoped that students can identify concepts they have learnt about across lessons.

Want to try embedding your school grounds further into curriculum learning? The staff at Lady Manners have some top tips. 

• Look for opportunities in what you are already doing. “You are probably already doing some activities that you can incorporate use of the school grounds into. For example, needing to study a local ecosystem in Geography is a great opportunity. Doing this doesn’t add anything extra or use up curriculum time, and it’s using an area that all students are already familiar with. They’ve all been there before and it’s a way for them to engage with their environment in a different way.”
• Get creative. “If you can get creative there is a lot of opportunity to get outside. You might have in the back of your head that if you are taking them outside it’s not ‘proper’ teaching, but actually you are probably doing more for them getting outside – it is what students remember.”

The National Education Nature Park's growing library of curriculum linked resources is a fantastic way to begin embedding climate and nature learning into your setting’s curriculum. Wherever you are in your journey, the Nature Park’s resources can support you.