Webinar | Understanding the Natural World Through Outdoor Play Early Years

Price

£72. This price includes £12 VAT.

Facilitator

Debi Keyte-Hartland

Debi Keyte-Hartland is an early years expert and TEDx speaker with over 25 years of experience working across the UK in schools, the PVI sector, and educational organizations. She also works internationally with schools in China, Singapore, Brazil, Switzerland, Canada, Norway, Senegal, and Sweden.

She is an associate lecturer with CREC (Centre for Research for Early Childhood) at Birmingham City University, co-writing and delivering an MA module on Creativity and the Arts in Early Childhood Education. She is also an Associate Consultant with Early Education, where she supports early years educators with training, resources, and professional networks.

In 2009, she completed an MA in Education, which focused on the creative and communicative approaches young children displayed in their drawings and graphics. This has led to many interesting collaborations looking at the role and generative contexts of drawing as a language of expression but also as a way of developing and communicating theories that children hold about concepts or knowledge about the world.

Debi is passionate about young children’s learning, the role of the teacher, and the way in which the arts and creativity play a central role in developing understanding and knowledge, creativity and critical thinking, and the expression and communication of children’s own thoughts and ideas. She currently facilitates learning networks and coordinates educational research projects with children and educators as co-researchers, as well as offering training, consultancy, and whole settings professional development.

Debi draws on many influences, such as Gregory & Nora Bateson (the study of systems and complexity) and the Preschool and Infant-Toddler Centres of Reggio Emilia in Italy. She encountered the work of Loris Malaguzzi more than 25 years ago, and it has since served as a pillar of inspiration and ethical reference that continually transforms and shapes her work with children, their educators, families, and the community. She is a Co-Director of Sightlines Initiative (The International Network Member of Reggio Children in the UK) and thus has attended many study tours on differing subjects such as documentation, transitions, and the role of the atelierista. She is currently studying with Reggio Children in their teacher-educator program, looking at the circulatory of conversations and learning contexts, pedagogical documentation processes, and the interpretation/visibility of learning.

In this webinar, Debi Keyte-Hartland, early years expert, TEDx speaker, and lecturer with over 25 years of experience working with schools, will explain how to provide opportunities for outdoor play in early years settings, at the same time, helping them to gain an appreciation of the interplay and interdependence of the living systems of which they are a part, and begin to understand the concepts of climate change and sustainability.

This webinar will provide headteachers, managers, teachers, and practitioners in early years settings with a fresh perspective on outdoor play, which takes advantage of rich learning opportunities afforded by the outdoor environment to help young children grow as confident and ecologically aware citizens.

Description

Webinar duration: 1 hour and 23 minutes (approximately).

This webinar will provide headteachers, managers, teachers, and practitioners in early years settings with a fresh perspective on outdoor play, which takes advantage of rich learning opportunities afforded by the outdoor environment to help young children grow as confident and ecologically aware citizens.
EYFS outdoor play offers endless opportunities for young children to explore and consider with wonder the systems and relationships that exist in the natural world around them and beneath their feet so that they can begin to understand their place within the ecosystem and facilitate progression toward the DfE’s early learning goal for the natural world, identified in the Statutory framework for the EYFS.

Learning Outcomes

Outcome 1:
Understanding how to use the early years setting, locality, and community in creative ways to develop outdoor learning and play with your children.

Outcome 2:
Gaining insight into the term ‘ecological identity,’ its importance, and how it can be developed in early years settings.

Outcome 3:
Being able to develop early years outdoor play projects offering rich contexts for your children to discover and learn about living systems in nature.

Outcome 4:
Reflecting on case studies of early years practice where the nature of urban and natural spaces is explored using systems thinking and an ecological lens.

Outcome 5:
Being able to identify ways to enable children to communicate their ecological ideas through outdoor play, thereby developing learning about climate change and sustainability.