Learning through Landscapes

Looking for outdoor learning ideas to take back to school?

Teaching the Primary Curriculum Outdoors is the essential guide to teaching and learning outside at primary school. Find out more or pick up your copy now 👇

Learning through Landscapes - Teaching the Primary Curriculum Outdoors Research evidence consistently shows that an outdoor learning environment can improve behaviour, engagement and encourage more active participation in learning. So why keep learning in a classroom? In reality, we know the challenges teachers face. We know the barriers that get in the way of taking l...

Warning! This post contains nuance, and calls for big societal changes!

In our latest post, we discuss the upcoming social media ban, and what teachers and parents can do to make this a win for play and time outdoors.

Read: https://ltl.org.uk/social-media-ban-how-to-redirect-children-from-screen-to-outdoors/

🛝Happy Playday! 🎉

Wishing everyone a great day filled with lots of fun and play! 🥳

https://www.playengland.org.uk/newsblog/playday-2026-play-here-there-and-everywhere

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Tomorrow is ! 🤸

This year's theme highlights the importance of creating opportunities for children to play wherever they are. Visit our website to download free activities to help you take play outdoors tomorrow — filter by "play"!

👉 https://ltl.org.uk/product-category/outdoor-lesson-ideas/

📣We are delighted to announce that the theme for this year’s Playday is…

Play – here, there, everywhere

This year’s theme highlights the importance of creating opportunities for children to play wherever they are. Play happens here, there and everywhere, from living rooms to school gates, to streets, parks, and neighbourhoods. It’s a part of children’s everyday life, and has a monumental impact on their happiness, health, and wellbeing. When children are supported to play in these everyday spaces, we help nurture positive outcomes and create communities where children can thrive.

This Playday, we are calling for all children to have access to:

🟢 playful moments. Small moments of play, at home and out and about, throughout the day can make a big difference to children’s everyday lives.

🟢 everyday adventures. Play doesn’t need to involve expensive activities, costly toys, or trips to far-off destinations, the simplest and free ideas are often the most fun.

🟢play their way around their neighbourhood. Making everyday journeys, to school, nursery, shops or the park, more playful and child-friendly can be enjoyable for all.

🟢inclusive and welcoming environments. Spaces and places where children of all ages and abilities feel they belong, will make a real difference to their enjoyment of play.

All children have the right to time, space and freedom to play – here, there and everywhere. This Playday, we are encouraging families, community leaders, play providers, childcare settings, and everyone working with children, to champion better spaces and opportunities for play, helping to create a more playful world where children can grow and thrive.

Please note - the Playday website is currently undergoing maintenance so is mostly unavailable.

Digital spaces are changing fast, bringing new threats to online safety. As the risk of bad actors using AI to manipulate images grows larger, schools have been advised to remove photographs of children from their websites and social media to protect pupils from those seeking to exploit them.

As an organisation working primarily with schools, we recognise that we also shoulder responsibility in this area. We have therefore decided to change the way we share photos, especially those of children. However, we know this is going to have an impact on our ability to reach the people we exist to help.

In our new blog post, we share some of our decision-making, reflecting on the difficulties of navigating this uncertain time in digital communications.

Learning through Landscapes - Why we’re changing how we share photos of children With the advent of generative AI, the digital landscape is changing faster than many of us anticipated, presenting new threats to our online safety. Here’s how we’re tackling the latest challenge.

Across the country, more and more children are finding themselves unable to walk through the school gates due to Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA).

There is a wealth of robust academic evidence demonstrating how nature-rich outdoor environments directly alter physiological state and support wellbeing. Could we look to the outdoors to solve this increasingly pressing issue?

Read our latest blog post to discover how you can use your school grounds to address EBSA and support pupil wellbeing 👇

Learning through Landscapes - Using your grounds to address Emotionally Based School Avoidance School anxiety continues to increase. Discover why nature-rich school grounds offer a powerful way to ease emotionally based school avoidance, supporting absent pupils and overwhelmed classmates alike.

Play - Here, There, Everywhere!

It's time to get ready for ! Join us on Wednesday 5th August in creating opportunities for children to play wherever they are!

This year, we're asking community leaders, play providers, childcare settings, families, and everyone working with children and young adults to champion better spaces and opportunities for play!

Register via the link below if you'd like to participate so we can shout about all the wonderful community organisations helping to celebrate the importance of every child's right to play 😍✨



https://www.playscotland.org/playday-2026/

For thirteen years, we’ve been running Nurturing Nature 🌱 It's a simple project, but one that offers incredible benefits for children's relationships in the early years.

Over on our blog, Jane Mackenzie tells us how free play with families in local greenspace can create memorable moments of belonging for all. Read the post to learn more about Nurturing Nature, plus how you can access the online course for free!

Learning through Landscapes - Into the wilds with children, their early years staff, and their families! For thirteen years we’ve been running the Nurturing Nature programme – an incredibly simple idea with benefits for every relationship.

As the global average temperature continues to climb, extreme weather events like the heatwave baking Europe this week will become more and more common 🌡️

Through projects like Climate School 180, we're helping schools to adapt their grounds to mitigate the impacts of climate change, using nature based solutions to improve climate resilience. Climate adaptation has never been more important, which is why we're delighted to make our School Grounds Audit tool available to everyone for free.

An audit of your school grounds will help you to reflect on how well your outdoor space currently supports learning, play, sustainability, and climate resilience, while helping you to identify opportunities for improvement across temperature, water management, carbon reduction, and more.

Visit our website to learn more about the Climate School 180 project, plus how to get started with an audit of your school grounds — ideally when it's a little cooler!

Climate School 180 👉 https://ltl.org.uk/project/climate-school-180/
School Grounds Audit 👉 https://groundsaudit.ltl.org.uk/

Only a few hours left to get your applications in! Don't miss it!

Only three days left to apply for £12,000 to transform your school grounds! ⏰

In partnership with WWF UK, we're giving 10 schools year-long training and support to embed nature-based play in nature-rich spaces within their grounds. Successful applicants to the Happy By Nature Fund will receive £12,000 each, alongside dedicated support to design a quality space and implement the changes with the help of a landscape architect.

We're accepting applications from primary schools in England, Wales, and Scotland until 11:59pm on 21 June — that's the end of the day on Sunday! Visit our website to apply or read our case study to discover how the Happy By Nature Fund is already helping a Swansea school to transform their grounds. Good luck 🤞

Apply now: https://ltl.org.uk/projects/happy-by-nature/
Read the case study: https://ltl.org.uk/transforming-a-schools-grounds-with-10000/