Do you know that Primary School Children spend 1.4 years of their life playing?
We are committed to continuously improving our outdoor area, to ensure it is an area where children have the opportunity to continuously learn and play throughout their time at Southwick Primary School.
Changing the way we play will have a positive impact on behavioural issues and will support children’s development, learning and how they manage risks.
W need your help to continue to improve our outdoor areas. We are running an incentive across the school to collect the following items, the first year group to complete their bingo card will win golden time outside.
We have been having lot’s of fun on our yard and new library caravan that was kindly donated to us. We spent a lot of time clearing it out and getting it ready for the children to enjoy. Just look at these happy faces – the children love the caravan and our outdoor learning spaces.
Young Tree Champions
We took delivery of our 5 broadleaf trees and 60 hedge whips in January 2025. Prior to this, we were contacted by ATW Tree and Landscaping Specialists Ltd, who very kindly offered to help us plant the trees and hedge whips. A group of year 1 and year 4 children thoroughly enjoyed learning for to plant the trees and hedge whip over a period of two days.
They have all been planted across the boundary lines of the field, and we cannot wait to begin to watch them grow and care for them. The gardeners from ATW taught us how to protect the trees from wildlife and ensure we give the trees the best possible start, they were a fantastic support and even kindly donated protective covers for the trees and lots of logs which we are going to use to replace the seating in our firepit area and cut the smaller ones to make some new outdoors games!
Take a look at us in action!
Outdoor Learning Day 2025
We had a lot of fun taking our learning outside as part of Outdoor Learning Day.
The HUB went on an autumn hunt finding leaves and pine cones and used mud paint to create art work.
Nursery played a matching game identifying different autumn colours in the forest.
Reception explored the book ‘Leaf Man’ and created lot’s of fun outdoor activities around the book.
Year 1 became young explorers and used natural resources to sort differences as part of computing.
Year 2 used fallen autumn leaves to create wonderful artwork.
Year 3 took Geography outside exploring how the season changes had impacted our school grounds.
Year 4 made repeating patterns in the style of their focus artist; William Morris using natural resources.
Year 5 completed some fantastic algebraic equations in Maths with leaves, pine cones, apples and sticks.
Year 6 used natural materials, such as sticks, leaves, stones, and twigs to make words that linked to their experiences in Year 6. This is what they said about their experiences outside
‘We thought carefully about what it means to be in our final year at primary school and chose words that represent us and our learning journey. Some of the words we created included brave, oldest, fun, and kind. Each word reflected something special about who we are as a class and how we feel about being in Year 6.’
It was fantastic to see everyone working together, sharing ideas, and showing teamwork and creativity. We all agreed that taking our learning outside gave us a new perspective and made us appreciate the beauty of nature around us. Outdoor Learning Day reminded us that learning doesn’t just happen in the classroom — it can happen anywhere!
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