Revisiting special places regularly during the different seasons, allows an ongoing deepening relationship with Country that reflects each child’s development. Through reflective review as a group, individual learning becomes contextualised, personal and real. The children learn about the history of places through visiting elders of all cultures and inviting cultural facilitators to teach their stories to our children. We connect to others within our community, who are linked to these places, and particularly groups such as GreenSkills and the Denmark Weed Action Group, to share knowledge.

Contact with nature is calming, stimulating and healing. By creating things with and from nature children are learning sustainability and creativity. In a world overloaded with virtual distractions the children are given time and space to come down to earth and engage with the peace and wonder of the real world.

Nature is not always calm and soft but it will always offer us the chance to learn about ourselves and the world around us. The guided experiences and challenges our children have in the natural environment nurture the whole child, building high emotional resilience that they can use throughout life. Natural environments offer emotional harmony and visual calmness that can diffuse the stresses of everyday modern life. The open ended experiences presented are affirming and with that framework, all other aspects of development may move forward more easily.

More specifically, a connection to nature allows us to teach the importance of our collective eco-footprint, through actively caring for the places we go to. We teach and learn about each environment and discuss the impact of human activity with the hope of creating respectful custodianship. Our three overarching principles remain ‘Care for people care for land, and care for things and places’.