Outdoor Classroom Day Campaign Overview

Nature Play WA leads the Australian campaign of Outdoor Classroom Day, and with support from our sister organisations and state partners around the country, we reach out to every school and early learning centre in Australia!

The movement, led globally by ActionFunder, celebrates and inspires outdoor learning and play. More than just "one day", our aim is to get as many children as possible playing and learning outside, every day, with a celebration of outdoor learning and play!

Since our involvement began in 2017, we have grown the movement to involve 10,512 teachers and educators around the country, who have registered 1,208,446 (and counting!) children to take part.

Campaign work for the Outdoor Classroom Day movement includes:

Recruitment:

Engagement of teachers and early years educators with the movement, inspiring them to register their class, school or early learning centre to take part, through the use of:

• Call To Action Email Communications - reaching out to Nature Play WA's and partners' extensive national audience of teachers and educators
• Facebook Promotion - through the Outdoor Classroom Day Australia Facebook page, and the collective reach through the Nature Play Facebook network around the country
• Website Promotion - dedicated webpage and blog articles designed to promote the movement and capitalise on Nature Play WA's excellent search engine positioning to garner traffic

Engagement:

Upon joining the movement, teachers and educators receive regular communications and access to highly engaging and relevant teaching resources through:

• Outdoor Classroom Day website - a treasure trove of lesson plans, resources and ideas to inspire taking learning and play outdoors.  Nature Play WA's experienced education staff create new and exciting lesson plans every year.
• Email Newsletter - Registered teachers and educators receive monthly emails, highlighting new resources, news and research on the importance of outdoor learning for their students.
• Outdoor Learning App - Nature Play WA offers an exciting new way of delivering lesson plans and recording observations through our free Nature Passport App.

Research:

Nature Play WA has built a strong relationship with more than 10,000 teachers and educators around the country over the past four years of our work on the movement.  This has allowed excellent opportunity to build research around the benefits of outdoor play and learning for children, culminating in the following research findings:

Muddy Hands Report Australia

This report sets out not only a snapshot report on how much more playtime Australian children are getting compared to everyone else, but also an overview of why outdoor learning and play is so very important.

Play Matters Report

The Playtime Matters report brings together both previous research and new findings that make the case for playtimes being a key part of the school day. It shows that outdoor play at school helps develop healthy, curious and active kids who are better connected to their environment. It brings together evidence that shows that time outdoors is particularly important for children’s mental health – reducing stress, giving a sense of calm and simply making them happier.

Outdoor Classroom Day Impact Report

In this Outdoor Classroom Day impact report, find out how the Outdoor Classroom Day community has been working towards making time outdoors part of every child’s day.

Since its humble beginnings in London in 2011, Outdoor Classroom Day has become the world’s biggest celebration of outdoor play and learning and the farthest reaching global movement campaigning for time outdoors every day for all children.

Outdoor Classroom Day goals

Results:

More than 1.2 million Australian school children have been registered to participate by their teacher or school since 2017, when Nature Play WA and its partners began delivering the Outdoor Classroom Day movement.

Across the length of the campaign, Australian children have been registered to participate in the day from schools in every corner of the country from Christmas Island to Campbelltown, and Bruny Island to Broome.

In Western Australia more than 50% of all primary schools have taken part in the campaign. And in a survey taken of participating teachers from the 2017 campaign indicates a strong understanding among Australian educators that outdoor learning, and play, is fundamentally important to children’s concentration, social skills, imagination creativity and overall happiness.

We know from that same survey that a third of the schools who have taken part in Outdoor Classroom Day have increased the time they spend in outdoor learning during the rest of the year, and 85% want to increase the time they spend in outdoor learning.

The full report can be found here - Muddy Hands Report Australia

Work with us:

Want to work with Nature Play WA to deliver your movement or campaign?  Contact Katherine Healy our Strategic Communications and Campaigns Manager at   to find out how.