A quarter of lesson time spent outdoors
IVN believes that every day should be Outdoor Lesson Day. IVN considers it extremely important that children spend much more time outdoors during school hours. That is why IVN’s mission is: 25 percent of lesson time spent outdoors. This means that children receive lessons outdoors every day. This is extremely important, because outdoor lessons lead to happier and healthier children who exercise more, are more enthusiastic and ultimately perform better too.
Since 2016
Since 2016, IVN Nature Education has organised the Outdoor Lesson Day campaign to draw attention to the use of the school playground for teaching. The (green) school playground and the surrounding area provide a fantastic outdoor classroom for nature lessons, as well as for teaching subjects such as language, mathematics, history and technology in a contextualised and integrated way, with more room for movement. This is not only great fun, it is also healthy and beneficial to pupils’ development.
More and more teachers are going outdoors on National Outdoor Lesson Day, but also on other days of the year. However, we are still far from reaching the 25 percent of outdoor lesson time that teachers themselves have identified as their goal. IVN tries to help teachers and schools by providing inspiration and examples, sharing knowledge and conducting research. IVN offers tips and inspiration for making the school playground greener and even more suitable for outdoor lessons. In addition, IVN calls on other parties, such as the national government, to help remove obstacles to teaching outdoors. Together with them, IVN wants to work towards a generation of teachers who truly embrace outdoor education.
All outdoor lessons
The website of Outdoor Lesson Day features all outdoor lessons. The wide range can be searched by year group or subject.