OUTDOOR LEARNING
Building resilience beyond the classroom for a brighter future
This profound experience, exacerbated by the on-going cost-of-living crisis, has led to a legacy of children and young people’s worsening school attendance, poor mental health, physical inactivity and inhibited future prospects.
W
ith resilience increasingly seen as a priority life-skill for young people, Dr John Allan, Head of Impact and Breakthrough Learning at PGL Beyond, says it’s time to recognise the value of Outdoor Adventure Education (OAE) at every stage of a child’s development.
It has been five years since the UK went into lockdown, when playgroups, nurseries, schools and colleges were closed. During the pandemic, we saw a rise in younger people experiencing worsening mental health, as evidenced by research from Mind and NHS England. Many young people found it harder to cope with the isolation than their older counterparts; indeed, 88% said loneliness made their mental health worse at this time.
As we face new societal challenges, such as the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence and increasing levels of misinformation online, it is becoming increasingly clear that youngsters must be equipped not just with knowledge, but with the ability to apply their understanding adaptively in a world where the only constant is change. They require the dexterity to empathise, the fortitude to persevere, the wisdom to question, and the humility to learn from failure. The case for prioritising psychosocial competencies alongside academic training is strong and underscored by research indicating that these 21st century skills correlate strongly with superior adult outcomes across the spheres of education, employment and mental health. In the diversity of 21st-century skills that education must support, resilience emerges as a key overarching element. Resilience is the learned capability of people to adapt positively in the presence of, or even as a result of, adversity. Although resilience is not a panacea for all of society’s ills, it comprises a broad set of personal assets (self-confidence) and external resources (caring relationships) which protect against stress (bounce-back ability) and provide a focus for growth (bounce-beyond ability). Resilience is recognised in school-based education
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as an effective policy for developing adaptive capabilities and future academic success.
Fostering resilience
Outdoor Adventure Education (OAE) offers a unique classroom without walls, an environment where the unpredictability of adventure in natural settings serves as the perfect backdrop for life’s real lessons. Here, young people engage with authentic challenges that enable the development of skills akin to resilience needed for them to adapt to present difficulties and build capacity for their future.
When immersed in nature, children are able to form deep connections with their surroundings, sparking their innate creativity and fostering a profound care for the environment. Nature encourages learners to pause, reflect, and gain perspective – to see beyond the immediacy of their personal experience and to focus on the wider world around them.
As little as five minutes of exercise undertaken in an urban green space such as a park or nature trail may be sufficient to boost physical and mental well-being through ‘biophilia’ described as an innate connection to nature, especially in the young and those suffering from mental illness. Indeed, in natural settings youngsters with attention deficit hyper-activity disorder (ADHD) display fewer symptoms and behavioural problems and are better able to focus on a particular task.
For this and many other reasons, teachers May 2025
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