Outdoor Classroom Day assembly – wellbeing

Inspire your children to take their learning outside and enjoy exploring the natural world while building essential skills and confidence. Perfect for Outdoor Classroom Day in either May or November. 

What's included

• Ready-to-use PowerPoint assembly which explores the benefits of Outdoor Classroom Day and its links with wellbeing
• Comprehensive teacher notes to accompany the assembly PowerPoint with additional ideas and links
• Cross-curricular links to English, maths, science and PSHE

Notes are available as a free PDF download, or access the editable version with a primary subscription.

How to use this resource

This whole-school assembly celebrates the great outdoors! Written to mark Outdoor Classroom Day in May, it explores the wellbeing benefits of being outside and looks at how we can do more of our learning in the fresh air, taking a subject at a time. 

The resource comprises teaching notes and a PowerPoint presentation and is intended to last approximately 20 minutes.  

It is particularly valuable for teaching:

• The benefits of learning in nature
• Developing and enhancing practical and critical thinking skill sets
• Environmental awareness and responsibility
• Exploration and fact-finding capabilities

Teachers can easily adapt these ideas to suit different year groups and abilities, making it an excellent addition to any scheme of work focusing on learning outdoors, collaborative play and child wellbeing. 

Linking outdoor learning with wellbeing

Here are five practical ways to naturally connect outdoor learning with wellbeing:

1. Use nature for mindfulness activities: Take advantage of the outdoor environment to help children feel calm and focused. Try a simple 5-4-3-2-1 sensory activity around the school grounds, asking children to notice 5 things they can see, 4 they can touch, 3 they can hear, 2 they can smell and 1 they can taste.
2. Make emotion art from natural materials: Collect items such as leaves, stones or twigs and invite children to draw facial expressions on them using marker pens. This creates a fun and visual way for younger pupils to recognise, discuss and express different emotions.
3. Support social interaction outdoors: Outdoor spaces can encourage more relaxed communication between children. Move group discussions or circle time outside and allow children to gather in smaller groups spread across the space, helping quieter students feel more comfortable contributing.
4. Blend learning with movement: Use outdoor activities to combine physical exercise with curriculum learning. Active maths challenges or games like climate-change dodgeball can help children release energy, reduce stress and improve concentration back in the classroom.
5. Introduce freeform nature play: Provide open-ended natural resources such as sticks, mud, stones and leaves for children to explore freely. This type of creative play encourages independence, resilience, collaboration and problem-solving skills.

Looking for more Outdoor Classroom Day resources?

We have created several useful resources to support children as they spend time learning in natural environments:

• Five tips for Outdoor Classroom Day -  Perfect for an engaging range of lessons based around learning outside, this set of five tips for Outdoor Classroom Day encompasses a diverse range of activities that will enrich the learning of EYFS, KS1 and KS2 children. Also included are two additional creative ideas to broaden and deepen children's connectivity to the natural world. 
• Andy Goldsworthy comprehension - A comprehension based on the famous artist Andy Goldsworthy that has been differentiated to three levels. Reading skills covered include information retrieval, inference and deduction and using evidence to support ideas. Answer guidance is provided
• Forest school activity cards - A great set of 8 fun and imaginative forest school activity cards, each with an engaging activity focusing EYFS and KS1 primary children on learning about their outdoor environment and nature.